Premature baby 'comes back to life'

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Specializes in Neonatal ICU (Cardiothoracic).

A couple from Kafr Yasif in the Galilee received the shock of their lives Monday when the wife's miscarried 610-gram fetus, which had been declared dead five hours earlier, was found to be breathing.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1218710394816&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

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Specializes in NICU.

wow...these babies never stop amazing me!!!

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Specializes in Peds.

That little girl has a long, hard road ahead of her before it can be said she's survived. 23 weeks is barely viable so her lungs are going to be stiff, her brain just waiting to bleed and her gut totally unready for the expectations to be placed on it. They're probably looking at a minimum of 6 months in hospital and crisis after crisis. But she's hung in this long, so she just might surprise us all.

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Specializes in NICU.

I totally agree with you. I have never seen a baby at 23 weeks breathing on their own for 5 hours. Sometimes at that gesatation we have had parents who didnt want anything done, and the baby dies within the first minutes or hours. As you know the usual course with these kids is surf, osc, and then we spend the first few days with round the clock gasses chasing thier pressures and blood sugars all night, and many of them still dont make it. I have just never seen one that held on that long with no intervention, however I guess anything is possible....I thought it was a good article

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, educator.

We had a kid like that a few years ago....that poor baby had every complication know to us.

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Specializes in Peds.

I remember one from when I worked ICN. Mom wasn't sure of her dates, could have been 23 or 24 weeks. Then the cutoffs were 24 completed weeks or 500 grams. She PROMed and babe was 503 grams so they resuscitated. What a sad little scrap. HIE, Grade 4 ROP, bilateral Grade 4 IVH, Stage 3 NEC, hearing loss. I ran into Mom again about 4 years later on antepartum, at 23 weeks with hourglass membranes. Oooh, deja vu. I don't know the outcome of that pregnancy, though.

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Specializes in Nurse Scientist-Research.

There was a set of 22 week twins at our hospital a few years ago. Our physicians offered only care and comfort. One twin died in the delivery room. The other one was left with mom to hold until she passed. 12 hours later the infant was still alive and breathing on her own. The Neos offered to the mom to try NICU care. The infant lived about 12-24 hrs more before she succumbed to the usual extreme preemie issues. The infant was born at the beginning of one of my shift one night, when I came in the next night they had just admitted the surviving twin and the next night they had withdrawn support during the day.

I don't agree with what was done, but I just don't know what I would have done if I was the parent.

But at least the baby in our unit had the mom providing kangaroo care that whole time, it's amazing the baby from the story had nothing, not even warmth.

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Thanks for sharing! What an amazing story.

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I'm kinda wondering how that baby with respirations and a heartbeat was pronounced dead in the first place...?!?

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Perhaps the baby had IUGR and was farther along than 23 weeks?

My church has been praying for a 1 pound 5 ounce baby who's been having a lot of problems. That in itself was not surprising, but when I found out it was a 30-week pregnancy, that explained a lot.

:(

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Specializes in Cardiac Nursing, ICU.

This is an amazing story. I hope that the baby will continue to live and continue to amaze us all!!

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Hmmm - and I thought cold stress was BAD for infants! Now they are saying the cold kept her alive?

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