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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.
Mom always told me not to play with plastic bags...
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"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.
of what your Mom accidentally packed you for lunch.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Everyone knows babies will keep better in tupperware
Or should I say Glad?
Anybody want a peanut?
Uh... none. What's yours?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
did you take the baby out of the bag first? Or did the baby make it slippery.
rewriting history since 2109
The $.05 sandwich bag was probably billed at $50+
Only until they turn 18. Giggity.
Meant to add:
"Lexi is now 11-week-olds old and weighs 5lbs 6oz. "
All things considered - as long as there are no other immediate complications this kid might make it out just fine.
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.
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)
Always carry a little tiny roll of duck tape. Besides its numerous other qualities and applications a strip over your heel will effectively completely heal (no pun intended) any blistering for several days.
I sometimes even proactively duct tape the contact points if I haven't worn my hiking boots for a few months.
I don't think your information is reliable.
Remember to maintain your supply of
you came off as an idiot who tries too hard to smart.
Lessons of the internet, part 1:
When insulting the intelligence of another, make sure your grammar doesn't fail at life.
The teachers will crack any minute, purple monkey dishwasher.
Premature birth is not a genetic condition so thers is no eugenics risk to saving premature babies:
http://www.marchofdimes.com/professionals/14332_1157.asp#head2
There is only some additional costs at time of birth and risk of some health problems later in life that are also non-genetic.
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."
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.
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My wife was born that size/premature, so it happens from time to time.
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..
The brain and most of the internal organs develop relatively early during gestation. The lungs are the last major organ to mature and they are frequently what gives very premature infants trouble. Infants born before 32 weeks gestation don't produce surfactant (the stuff that keeps your lungs open so air can get in and out) themselves and can basically suffocate. Once you have them properly ventilated and such, they tend to do okay as long as they don't catch an infection. The immune system also is immature in a baby, but it generally doesn't really kick into gear until about 6 months of age for a normal infant, so it's not specific for premature infants.
Just "gittin-r-done," day after day.
> this is an accurate portrayal of medicine in the UK
It was a national UK newspaper *story*. What do you think?
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.
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?
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.
Delivering into a plastic bag is standard neonatal practice in order to minimise insensible fluid loss. Ointment is not the best treatment by any means, and the plastic bag is a stopgap before getting the baby into an incubator with proper humidity control. You need to re-read the article: the baby was born at Worcestershire Royal Hospital because there wasn't time for an in-utero transfer to to Birmingham Heartlands (the tertiary centre); the baby was transferred ex-utero to Birmingham Heartlands and stayed there for 3 days, then downgraded to a less advanced unit.
I couldn't get into medical school. :(
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