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.

Comments

Is the Story Real?

[bmajik]

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.

Re:Is the Story Real?

[xaxa]

Perhaps you should read the article: "Worcestershire Royal Hospital only has the facilities to care for premature babies born from 28 weeks onwards and doctors wanted to transfer her to a specialist unit at Birmingham's Heartlands Hospital but there wasn't time."

If more American hospitals are equipped to deal with babies born earlier than this that could explain a difference in survival rates, but I don't know if that's the case.

Note that Sweden and Germany count the birth rate in the same way as the USA, but do better. At the end of this article are some survival results for full-term births. On Wikipedia there's the 5-year survival rate.

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.

You could say the same about Britain. (From the article, we know this is a teenage (17) mother with an older (24) father, they aren't married, and they all have stereotypical working-class names.)

Finally, we measure mortality much differently here than do most other places.

Yet your own government (see here) "concluded, however, that the differences in reporting are unlikely to be the primary explanation for the United States’ relatively low international ranking."

Re:Is the Story Real?

[bmajik]

Right. So in the US there are levels of NICU facilities (there are 3, i believe), and it works similarly in that a level foo facilitity cannot really support a child born earlier than a certain gestational age, or with certain difficulties.

The place our children stayed was a "we can do anything" level facility, and one of the reasons it had a helipad is that they went and picked up babies from all over the state that couldn't be handled in the facilities they were in. Many of the nurses that worked on my kids had special "FLIGHT NURSE" badges that basically meant they were trained to keep 20-something week infants alive in a bumpy helicopter.

There was also a special flight-rated isolette unit (incubator + semi-sealed environment with respiration support) parked in the lobby of the NICU area.

So how it would work is that the chopper from my town was usually en-route as the mom was going through pre-delivery, and the staff would pick mom and baby up and bring them back.

Regarding the demographic issue.. i saw lots of families come in (and out) of the NICU that didn't appear, from my prejudicial eyes, to be in a position to pay the bill. Their children were treated the same way by the same people.

Part of the issue is that pre-devliery care breaks down across economic strata, and in the US, there is a high correlation to racial demographics. If you look at the CDC report, you see that aggregately, african american babies have worse outcomes than white babies in the USA, who are marginally worse than hispanic babies. Part of that is socio-economic, and part of it appears to be genetics. The NICU nurses are very aware of which genders and which races seem to, correcting for other factors, appear to mature and survive at which rates. Premature Girls, as a rule, mature faster than boys, and our boy-girl twins, our daughter was much stronger and healthier from the get go than our son.

None of this explains why the doctors would claim they had never seen a 1lb 26 week baby "survive". 26 weekers regularly survive. It may have been a mischaracterization of what was said by the patient.

Re:Is the Story Real?

[moterizer]

they all have stereotypical working-class names

Please enlighten me. Perhaps this was meant tongue-in-cheek. On this side of the pond we can deduce precisely nothing from someone's name regarding class, socio-economic niche, etc. Are you suggesting that \caste\ class distinction is still divided along familial lines over there? I mean, really? You guys still do that?

Re:Is the Story Real?

[uglyduckling]

There's a third option which you neglect: it's a stupid newspaper article full of hyperbole, from which you would be really silly to draw sweeping conclusions about the whole of neonatal care in the UK. Also, if you look on page 34 of this report, it seems like the WHO don't agree with your figures, at least for 2006.

Re:Just wait...

[jweller]

My twin girls were born at 31 weeks and required a stay in NICU. I'm laughing. You should try it, you'll live longer.

Re:Fetus in a bag

[baegucb]

My wife was born that size/premature, so it happens from time to time.

The US has the best health care in the world...

[Sir Holo]

...if you are wealthy.