Maribeth Barcley had never heard of bronchiolitis before her daughter Samantha was admitted to hospital with it as an infant.
They were asked to participate in a University of Calgary study to help find a way to reduce the number of these types of hospitalizations.
“If it was going to help people in the future or help my daughter, why not?” said Barcley.
After three years, Barcley found out that her daughter had been given the two drugs: epinephrine and dexamethasone, instead of the placebo.
“Kids who got both medicines as opposed to just the placebo or either drug alone had a third fewer hospitalizations,” said Dr. David Johnson, from the faculty of medicine at the University of Calgary.
The study was done over a three-year period, involving 800 babies in eight hospitals across Canada.
