Xenon gas therapy for hypoxic babies

[wes]

DB,

Read this story on giving xenon gas to babies and cooling them at the same time to help them recover from extreme hypoxia:

World first as new-born baby is given xenon gas - Health News, Health & Families - The Independent

Would someone explain to me how this works? Is xenon gas used by mixed gas divers? Do they just give the babies xenon gas and O2, ie no nitrogen?

Thanks and Cheers - Wes Lapp

 

[trux]

From Exotic diving gases :

Xenon (Xe) is a noble gas and non-toxic, therefore it could be used as an inert gas in breathing mixture together with oxygen (xenonox), but xenon is also very narcotic gas (it's an anesthesic gas too...) and that's why there's no real use for diving. Xenon is actually 25 times as narcotic as nitrogen. For a dry suit gas xenon could be nice, because it has very good thermal characteristics, but is has not been tested for that purpose enough. Xenon is also very, very expensive gas!