[2curlygirls]

I have some friends (non nurses) who believe that NICU's are full of babies who have fallen victim to birth interventions (epidural, pitocin blahblahblah). I've NOT found this to be at all true in our 40 bed unit.
I know these interventions do have risks to mom and baby but we rarely get babies admitted to the unit because of them. (barring of course iatrogenic prematurity)
What are your experiences? Are other NICU's full of babies who's moms were given pit? Thanks for your input!

[BittyBabyGrower]

Uh, no. They are mostly preemies. We don't have kids admitted because of Pit, heck we don't even know if the mom got pit most of the time. Let them believe what they want, you won't change them.

[Gompers]

I think your friends need to take a tour of a Level III NICU someday.

They'd be absolutely horrified.

Some people have no clue that babies can be born sick. They blame OB medical interventions for the existance of NICUs? It's really the other way around. Without neonatal medical interventions, there wouldn't be any need for NICUs because these babies would never survive otherwise.

[2curlygirls]

I think your friends need to take a tour of a Level III NICU someday.

That's what I said!

[TiffyRN]

Yea, I've taken care of lots of babies in the NICU that are there due to OB intervention. As in they are alive and recovering as opposed to dead and buried. Due to the fact that some OB intervention found a problem, got the infant out and gave them a chance to live. Think severe PIH, gastroschisis, placental insufficiency. . .

About the only issue we see (that fit your friends criterion) is an occasional c-section baby that has "wet" lungs and needs a little longer to absorb that fluid, maybe has TTN, but vag babies get that too (though I don't know the stats of completely natural vag vs vag with any sort of intervention).

I think your friend probably also need to visit old graveyards and count all the newborn headstones. Though we can always improve our practice our infant mortality rates are SO SO much lower now than when there was no medical intervention.

[BabyRN2Be]

Originally Posted by TiffyRN

About the only issue we see (that fit your friends criterion) is an occasional c-section baby that has "wet" lungs and needs a little longer to absorb that fluid, maybe has TTN, but vag babies get that too (though I don't know the stats of completely natural vag vs vag with any sort of intervention).

I know that I'm not a nurse yet, but I do work in L&D. Usually the only reason why I see babies go to the NICU is because of c-sections and the baby ended up with "wet" lungs. In all the moms I've worked with, I've never seen a baby go to the NICU because of an epidural, pitocin or any of those types of interventions. I believe that your friend needs some education of what babies typically comprise the NICU.

Originally Posted by TiffyRN

I think your friend probably also need to visit old graveyards and count all the newborn headstones. Though we can always improve our practice our infant mortality rates are SO SO much lower now than when there was no medical intervention.

I could not agree with you more. Every summer our family takes a trip to Iowa. My dad does a lot of genealogy work and we go through the cemetaries to find where ancestors are buried. Every time I can't help but notice the tiny headstones marking a baby's grave. It makes me very thankful for the technology we have today.

[Gompers]

Originally Posted by BabyRN2Be

I could not agree with you more. Every summer our family takes a trip to Iowa. My dad does a lot of genealogy work and we go through the cemetaries to find where ancestors are buried. Every time I can't help but notice the tiny headstones marking a baby's grave. It makes me very thankful for the technology we have today.

In an old Wisconsin graveyard, I saw so many baby tombstones that just said "BABY" on them. No first name, no last name, no date. Just "BABY" and that's it. Very creepy. Tons of them, too.

[Gompers]

Originally Posted by TiffyRN

I think your friend probably also need to visit old graveyards and count all the newborn headstones. Though we can always improve our practice our infant mortality rates are SO SO much lower now than when there was no medical intervention.

Actually, since they changed the age of viability, I don't know that our rates are that much better than they used to be. Before, any baby under a kilo or maybe 28 weeks or so used to be considered a miscarriage and thus not an infant death. Now that we consider a live birth anything over 400 grams and/or 23 weeks, there are lots more babies out there, but many of them do not survive. So while mortality rates aren't that great - actually compared to other countries the USA has pretty mediocre rates - we are saving babies much smaller and sicker than they used to be.

Whenever I see a grandparent in our unit asking about all the medical interventions we're using to save these babies and wondering if we're doing the right thing - that they didn't have all this hoopla when they had premature or sick babies and some of them did just fine being fed with eyedroppers and such...I bring up JFK's son Patrick. When I tell them that Patrick (who was about 34 weeks) would have had over a 95% chance of survival had he been born now instead of then, they get this look of understanding on their faces as they realize that neonatal technology is actually a good thing and that we're lucky to have it.

[PedsRN&momto5girls]

While I can understand what she's saying, probably meaning one intervention leading to another which leads to another which leads to another in L&D, I would say her statement isn't accurate. Sure, I've seen babies in NICU who were there more than likely because of some interventions that were caused during birth (of course intervention ended up saving the baby, but many times had intervention not occured to begin with the life saving wouldn't have been needed). That said, I see more preemies there than anything. Of course, there are babies who are full term who had expected problems like gastroschisis and so on too. Of course, there are the babies who are there from required intervention (with pitocin) in order to get a baby out with mom who has PIH, ICP...the list goes on. Anyway, I get her point about unnecessary interventions leading to problems in birth, but I wouldn't agree that complications from that is what we mostly see in NICU. JMHO.