We Can Let Babies Die: 6 Realities Of Neonatal Nursing

There was a baby boy who had been in a vegetative state since birth. He couldn't breathe without a machine, and had no brain stem reflexes. So we sent him out to have feeding and breathing tubes implanted, but the surgical team refused to do it. It'd be like giving mouth-to-mouth to a steak. Here's the thing, though: No one informed the mother that the surgery was being postponed for ethical reasons. Instead, the head doctor simply said that they needed to do more tests.

A week later, the ethics committee met -- without ever contacting the mom -- and decided that we should let the kid die. It's been months now, and the woman still doesn't know what's going on with her son. Don't get me wrong; I think that ceasing treatment is the right decision. But the hospital went about it in a terrible way, and there's shockingly little I can do about it besides file complaints.

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Calcium glubionate and zinc are also good examples. Calcium glubionate prevents seizures and abnormal heart rhythms in kids without causing intestinal issues. It's pretty awesome like that, and yet the hospital I used to work at couldn't get it no matter what they did. Zinc lowers the risk of respiratory and intestinal illnesses, mental and developmental delays, and poor growth. It too was put on back order, and stayed there so long that some hospitals would give kids expired or unapproved zinc from Europe. It was still technically good (minerals don't really "expire"), and they would always get the parents' consent before administering any of it.

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It doesn't take long for NICU parents to start resenting each other -- especially if one of them is more ready to say "That's enough, please let the baby go" than the other. I think both options have merit. Sometimes, it is less cruel to let a child die. But ...

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You also have to worry about things you can't see. If there's a problem with your chromosomes, you can expect a host of issues, including learning disabilities, increased risks of cancer, and early-onset Alzheimer's disease. There's also a gene that codes for, and I'm being totally serious here, the Sonic Hedgehog protein, which is vital in some very important processes, like telling your brain how to develop. A defect in it can result in a child being born with only one eye, and is frequently fatal.

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In 1960 alone, about one in 40 newborns born in the U.S. would not leave the hospital alive, and many of those who did were not presented to the parents in factory condition. The most common problem with premature babies is their lungs not working well, so for the longest time, hospitals pumped oxygen into their incubators to help them breathe.

Unfortunately, we then discovered that too much oxygen made premature babies blind, as it caused their retinas to detach. (Sorry, Stevie Wonder!) But when we did the next logical thing and kept the oxygen lower to protect the babies' eyes, we screwed up and accidentally went a little too low, resulting in a bunch of kids coming down with mental disabilities. Oops.

Doctors finally started getting their shit together around 1963, after they failed to save JFK's son. His name was Patrick and he was born about a month too early. These days, it is nearly unheard of for such a baby to die, but back then, the hospital couldn't even keep the freaking President's child alive for two days. Things got better after that, but it was a slow, bumpy process.

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But then the next day, I might come home all happy and jazzed-up on adrenaline because I got to save a newborn's life by sticking a giant needle into its chest while imagining I'm John Travolta in Pulp Fiction, or because I got to watch an AWESOME fetal surgery on the hospital TV while eating popcorn. (Word of advice: If a nurse ever asks if you want to see something "awesome," you should probably say "no" and start running in the opposite direction.)

Jane Doe is a nurse, ex-NICU parent, and the most depressing person to have at dinner parties when you ask her what she does for a living. Cezary Jan Strusiewicz is a Cracked columnist, interviewer, and editor. Contact him at c.j.strusiewicz@gmail.com

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