Few things arouse human emotion as strongly as babies do. They are one of the few remaining cultural icons of innocence, operating with the simplest and purest of human feelings. They cry when upset, they sleep when content, and their waking activities revolve around eating, pooping, and discovering that they have arms and legs. A baby’s desires are not complex.
And yet, as any parent knows, this does not mean that caring for them is an equally simple task. In fact, the inverse is true; the more primitive and helpless a baby is, the more complex his or her surrounding world must become in order to support life. At this point in residency, I have watched over patients of all ages and types, and few patients in the hospital are as fragile as those in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. A single additional day of maturity, a few extra grams of weight, even the presence or absence of light can mean the difference between life, death, and permanent disability. Thousands of dollars are easily spent on the titration of medications or nutritional formula by milligrams and milliliters.
Why? Some of these extreme measures are driven by a sense of hope and potential. It reminded me of career advice from a former obstetric attending: [Read more…] about Babies and Bethlehem