PLASTIC sandwich bags are helping to save the lives of vulnerable young patients at a Liverpool hospital’s neonatal unit.

Premature babies are being placed into the life-saving bags – normally used to carry lunches – to reduce the chances of hypothermia at Liverpool Women’s Hospital.

Teamed with special gel mattresses, they are ensuring that the survival rate of the unit’s premature babies is above the national and international average.

Doctors say the key to this low-tech approach is putting the little ones into the bags as soon as they are born.

This stops them losing their body heat which new-borns are prone to do very quickly.

The Women's Neonatal unit was one of the first to use the technique, with dramatic results. Following the introduction, admissions from hypothermia fell from 19.4% to 3.9% for babies born at 28 and 29 weeks.

Consultant neo-natologist Bill Yoxall, who pioneered the use of plastic bags in Liverpool, has just received an award for Excellence in Patient Care from Liverpool Women's NHS Foundation Trust in recognition of this work in caring for vulnerable babies.

Held at the Liverpool Medical Institute, the awards ceremony celebrates staff achievements in patient care, implementing research-based practice, new technology and in supporting staff development.

Dr Yoxall says premature babies cool down very quickly after birth and this puts them at risk of hypothermia and total organ failure.

“By enclosing their bodies in a plastic bag, popping on a woolly hat as soon as they are born and then placing them under an overhead radiant, we prevent them losing their body heat through water evaporation from their skin. It is as if we are putting them into a little sauna.

“It is all basic stuff but it has been phenomenally successful at saving lives.”