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Doctors Save Premature Baby Using Sandwich Bag
Born 14 weeks early, Lexi Lacey owes her life to some MacGyver inspired doctors and a sandwich bag. Lexi was so small at birth that even the tiniest insulating jacket was too big, but she fit into a plastic sandwich bag nicely. ''The doctors told us they had never known a baby born as prematurely as Lexi survive. She was so tiny the only thing they had to keep her body temperature warm was a sandwich bag from the hospital canteen — it's incredible to think that saved her life," says her mom.
I wonder what the survival rate will be now she is stabilized?
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
Mom always told me not to play with plastic bags...
This sig is in another castle.
I too used a plastic sandwich bag this week for a medical miracle; I was hiking and developed a blister on my heel, but through the use of a plastic sandwich bag as cushioning and slippery material so that my heel wouldn't rub, I was able to continue with less pain, and without worsening the blister.
I know, impressive.
Maybe this means that plastic baggies will soon be needing FDA approval, or maybe a prescription.
Lexi Lacey?Seriously?
Aren't there laws to protect children from that?
Comic book penciled by Jim Lee coming soon.
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
Lexi Lacey?!
I suppose that's one more porn star we'll have in 18 year's time.
She will not survive. Nobody does. What counts is how long you manage to put off the dying.
Live, it is a killer.
Lucky that hospital is in England, in the US they would have their ass sued off for telling the mother it was nothing. And rightly so.
Remember US, when you complain about law suits, in the EU we have no means of putting the fear of god (or rather dollars, which doctor worship) into doctors.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Hmmm, a second trimester baby living(so far). Now why are the pro-choice folks so adamant about NOT outlawing 3rd trimester abortions*?
*Special cases excluded of course.
of what your Mom accidentally packed you for lunch.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Everyone knows babies will keep better in tupperware
Her parents will tell her "You were almost a ham sandwich".
Or should I say Glad?
Anybody want a peanut?
Some kid, hearing his slashdot-reading parents discuss this, decides to "play doctor" and stuffs his little brother into a trash bag? The industry will have to react by poking air-holes in all plastic bags. Wait, they do that already! Every new zip-top sandwich bag I fill with liquid seems to come pre-perforated.
I need trepanation like I need a hole in the head.
I don't know if she survives, yet I was born ~25 days prematurely.
It's still very impressive, though.
The $.05 sandwich bag was probably billed at $50+
Did they poke holes for her to breathe, or did they cut little head holes so she could wear it like a tiny parka?
I was born roughly three months early. The doctors made a little jacket for me out of a sandwich bag as well. I still have it.
Until you have a baby. None of these kind of comments will be funny anymore. Seriously.
True story that I witnessed myself: When a woman is about to deliver vaginally, there is a drape under her with plastic bags to collect the amniotic fluid and keep it from splashing all over the MD/midwife's legs and feet as they sit/stand there to help the baby out. In this case, the obstetrician dropped the baby as she came out (they are very slippery). By shear luck, the baby fell into the plastic bag instead of falling all the way to the floor. We all went "whew!" as the Daddy said "so THATS what that plastic bag is for!" Needless to say, we didn't correct him.
(Do I really need to put something in here to be more funny? I thought the title was good enough!)
The world record for preemies is about 18 weeks. My girlfriend was about two months premature, and her younger sister was about 16 weeks premature -- and is doing surprisingly well, after a whole lot of surgery in her first six months. She had her twenty-first birthday last month and we were joking that she was actually only 20 1/2. But my girlfriend said that when her sister was born, she easily fit in a person's hand, and was covered in dark brown hair all over her body, so for years they called her 'mouse' or 'rat'.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Look for the itemized line item:
Fetus protection jacket: $643.72
No infant at THAT hospital has survived at that age. Plenty of kids at other hospitals have survived I believe the record for youngest is 21 weeks 6 day and the record for the smallest is 244 grams. So this girl doesn't really come close to those records. In the article the hospital says they are only equipped for deliveries of preemies 28+ weeks and usually refer to a hospital with more specialized equipment for the cases more premature than that. Reality TV star, Josie Duggar, was born at 24 weeks and is doing great (newest member of the Duggar family from "19 kids and counting" on TLC)
I guess this makes up for all the babies they let die for being born before the 24 week mark.
And just as confusing...
Infant insulating jacket. $247.58 billed
Insurance adjustment: $198.42.
Amount covered 49.16.
Deductible $25.
Insurance pays $24.16.
Please pay $25.00
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Or is this a reflection on healthcare differences in the UK vs the USA?
I had _twins_ born at 26 weeks gestation in April. THe claim that the UK doctors had never seen a baby born this early could only be true if one of the following were also true
- it was a very small hospital and they didn't have much prematurity experience
- the stated age is incorrect. when you use relative gestational ages (i.e. 14 weeks early), people disagree on what the "end goal" is.. is it 40 weeks? 38 weeks? 37 weeks? SInce people count weeks from different starting points (start of menstrual cycle, post fertilization, etc), the total number of gestational weeks can be thought of differently. So if the age was "37 weeks minus 14 weeks, i.e. 23 weeks" then that is still an EARLY baby, but not the earliest recorded surviving baby (that honor is currently 21 weeks)
- the quality of NICU care in the UK is so poor that they really don't see surviving babies this early
My wife's water broke at 24 weeks; the doctor told us at that time that if the kids were to be born immediately they'd have about a 20% chance of living and not having long term disabilities.
They were able to prevent labor for about 2 weeks, such that my children were born at 26 weeks, weighing right around 2 lbs each (2x the weight of the baby in the article.. who is statistically undersized for 26 weeks gestation)
I wonder if this is a reflection on differing medical care in various countries. The oft-cited report about infant mortality in the US leaves out some important factors -- namely that socio-economic diversity in the US, and racial heterogenoy correlate with and explain some of our increased infant mortality. But furthermore, that nearly 1 out of 8 babies in the US are born prematurely, wich is MUCH higher than developed european nations.
Finally, we measure mortality much differently here than do most other places. If the baby in this story had died, it would have counted as mortality here, but would not have counted as infant mortality in many developed nations.
Aggregately, our different demographics and our higher incidence of prematurity, combined with our more broad definition of mortality skew the infant mortality higher than some nations we rank against.
Yet the most interesting fact is that premature babies do better in the USA than anywhere else (with perhaps 1-2 scandavian countries ranking marginally better).
IOW, we have lots of premature babies, and they have a beter shot of surviving here than they do anywhere else.
I happen to live in a smallish city -- around 100k people, and we have two big hospitals, one of which has a helicopter.
Yet even in this small town in a remote part of the country, my twins, born at 26 weeks (allegedly the same age as the baby in this story) lived and came home after 100 days of NICU stay.
Incidentally, there was no need to use sandwhich bags to keep my kids alive.
A lot of people have a lot of bad things to say about the US medical system. What I know is that 30 years ago, my children would have died, but in 2010, even in remote North Dakota, they lived. And statistically, they are living more and more often here.
Is this really what parents in the UK should expect if they go into pre-term labor? And if so, is that the kind of medical service we want here in the USA? With sandwhich bags?
You might want it. However, I'm glad my wife went into early labor in the US.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
A life-saving technique, or a handy container for a delicious baby sandwich? Hmmmmmmmmm...
Happy people make bad consumers.
...it really is ok to put a plastic bag over your head.
SCIENCE. Now wait for people to come out of the woodwork claiming that the sandvich bag was placed there by god etc etc.
iburnaga.blogspot.com
If human brain activity exists then I don't see how the child can be called a fetus.
At what point in development does human brain activity typically begin?
Too bony.
Then there's the added bonus that she's also protected from freezer burn.
"A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
Sandwich
Babies in sandwich bags only sound impressive until you consider that there was an old lady who lived in a shoe.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
The baby is so small, they are able to keep it alive technically. But it is likely to have a malformed or underdeveloped brain and deficient organ development. If it survives to be a vegetable some shyster will convince the parents to sue the maker of the plastic bag.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Good thing we don't kill children this young the the womb...oh wait.
Will they bill $100 for the bag?
... bronze the bag!
Depends. What's their political affiliation?
I think it depends on how you define "brain activity". I believe that fetal movement (willful movement, that is) starts around 15 - 16 weeks of gestational age. Commanding movement would have to involve brain activity by definition. Involuntary movement starts around 10 - 12 weeks.
--Insert catchy
It depends on your definition of brain activity. The neural tube closes at about week 6. There is movement by 8 weeks. Brain activity controls movement (unless the movement is only spinal reflex, but that would be difficult to determine). In any case, there is rudimentary brain function very early in development.
Some would say it takes a couple decades..
Third trimester abortions ARE illegal except special cases currently. Roe v Wade was basically 1st trimester it is the mother's choice. 2nd it is the state's. 3rd it is not allowed except in special cases.
At least that is how I was led to understand our laws on the topic.
Well, if you mean human brain activity along the line of "what make us human and separates us from the animals?", you are looking at late childhood and more likely teen to adult years. There are many "people" who never make it to "human". Of course again once we look at "begin" then it is time to break out the beer and get ready to have a philosophical argument.
If you are angling more towards the "life begins at conception!" direction you can find incredibly simple neural activity early on in the development cycle. Of course for this definition you have to be crediting something less functional than a flatworm as human, just due to DNA.
IIRC neural activity starts when it's an eymbro, so before becoming a fetus. Brain development is completed around the 25th year. So your distinction can't really be used. There are no good cut-offs, language is learned before birth, but infants aren't all that intelligent (less than many animals).
My boss gave me a ziploc bag full of pulled pork from his church barbecue that I took home for lunch today. NOT the imagery you want...
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
the other other white meat!
Allright lunchtime. Let's see what do we have today ... AAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHH!
google ads suggest better bags
They could have just put the thermometer in the bag. Would have kept her temperature warm just fine.
Special cases? Let me help you define that...
Special 'spe-shul (n): Cases in which a doctor determines, in his/her professional opinion, that a full-term pregnancy would pose significant health risks to the mother.
In other words, special means normal.
Every pregnancy poses significant health risks to the mother... you don’t even have to find a doctor who’ll lie about that! You just have to find a doctor who’ll write you the paper saying that this case poses significant health risks so that you can abort.
Same goes for doctor-recommended sick leave, but that’s another issue entirely...
Mommy mommy! It's hot in here and my neck is feeling chafed!
Shut up and stay in your sandwich bag, preemie!
Oh for crying out loud, where do you people come from? Seriously. Do you really believe that there's this big group of people out there who just like killing babies for sport?
No. Special means cases where risk to the mother is significantly higher than would normally be expected. There are no doctors out there just rubbing their hands together and laughing maniacally about how many otherwise viable children they intend to kill off in needless third trimester abortions. If a woman is told at a late stage in her pregnancy that it looks like it's going to be either her or the baby, but not both that will survive, that's a horrible moment in her life. Some may choose to risk it all for the sake of the baby, but you have no right to act all superior and expect that she'll lay down her life for that child, who may not live either. You don't even have the courage to post under anything other than Anonymous Coward, so don't expect me to believe that you're so brave that you'd forfeit, or even risk, your life without a second thought.
Further, do you really think that pregnant women typically carry a baby for 6 or 7 months and suddenly decide, "naaah, I don't want one of these after all". There are not swarms of women in the last stages of pregnancy flocking to abortion clinics just for the fun of having an abortion. I won't say that it can't or doesn't *ever* happen, but a woman experiencing a healthy pregnancy, with a healthy baby is not at all likely to seek a late term abortion for no apparent reason.
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
...if you are wealthy.
From the article:
...Miss Rowberry said: ''It was frightening. I rang the maternity suite and they just told me to go to sleep."
"She rang the maternity suite at Worcestershire Royal Hospital in Worcester but was told it was nothing to worry about and to go back to sleep...
Socialized medicine at its finest.
If this had happened at my workplace, where there's an asshole who can't wait to prey on whatever other people have brought for lunch, things could have got ugly.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
News for... hmm
Stuff that... ah, nevermind.
http://reproductiverights.org/en/document/the-federal-abortion-ban-supreme-court-hearing-for-gonzales-v-carhart-faq
Only 40 states and DC, so that leaves 10 states, or 17 if you are Obama, that do not ban it.
They told us my daughter had a disorder that is incompatible with life and scheduled the abortion without even asking us. They said she had trisomy 18 before they even did an amniocentesis. She was born with some abnormalities - She is missing an arm, and her liver was in the umbilical cord - but surgery fixed the latter, and people live with limb deficiencies all the time. Some people's challenges are just more visible than others. She didn't have trisomy 18 either - there are no chromosomal anomalies. She was born 3 years ago yesterday, and spent 3 months in the NICU as she grew strong enough to breathe on her own after the surgery put the liver in her stomach (thus compressing her lungs somewhat). Today, she spent her first day at a Montessori school. She is a normal, well adjusted little girl, just with one arm. Sorry, but the doctor simply isn't always right and I thank God every day that we ignored him, because that sweet little girl wouldn't be here today if we listened to him.
Who put mustard on the baby again!?
"I'll have whatever that is.."
Can anyone recommend a good therapist for me.. er.. my schizophrenic network card?
I couldn't get into medical school. :(
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
dammit, I want to mod that funny so badly. I LOL'd.
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
"Her mother Chelsea Rowberry, 17, said: ''The doctors told us they had never known a baby born as prematurely as Lexi survive."
So, underage kids having babies... Then we have.
"Miss Rowberry and her partner Lee Lacey, 24, feared she was having a miscarriage when she suffered agonising stomach pains when she was 26 weeks pregnant on the evening of June 26. "
What? So she has a 24-year-old "partner"? I'd be in jail right now if that were me.
And considering they are the same gender, this seems like it could be a planned pregnancy.
What a weird world we live in
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year