Comments at The Washington Post on "'She’s a miracle': Born weighing about as much as ‘a large apple,’ Saybie is the world’s smallest surviving baby."
The baby, delivered by Caesarian section at 23 weeks, was only 8.6 ounces. Younger babies have survived, so this birth doesn't affect calculations of "viability" within abortion analysis, which look at age. In this case, the mother and the baby's life were in danger (from preeclampsia) and the pregnancy had to end. With 23 weeks of gestation, she chose to endure the abdominal surgery, not knowing how low-weight the baby would be. Based on the age alone, the baby was estimated to have only a 20% chance of survival. With the very low weight, survival seemed impossible, but the "parents decided that if she had a heart rate 'they wanted everything done.'"
The neonatologist said "I thought her chances of making it probably weren’t good. I told the folks every hour I would update them, but there’s a good chance she’s going to die." Now that the super-tiny baby has survived, he says, "It lets everyone know that it is possible."
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82 comments:
Amazing. The developing baby turned out to be a...baby.
I guess that could be interpreted as a blow to abortion rights...if that's where your head goes. And if that's where your head goes, you probably wanted that baby to die so it could be shown that she/he was just a mass of cells and not a baby.
So sorry to disappoint.
preeclampsia?
There was a fairly interesting discussion a few days ago between commentators (Dr. K, and others) in another post. Maybe we (you?) need a preeclampsia tag?
Just trying to make more work for you Professor!
Life is problematic.
I can see why this would be an argument against abortion at 24 weeks.
Why would it be an argument against abortion generally?
Who is paying for the baby's hospital care and future development issues?
This will be remembered, because it can easily be used on the elderly and other infirmed. It won't be used on illegal immigrants entering the country, most departing socialist utopias with better healthcare than the US, because the healthcare is free. Wait a minute, if healthcare is free in the US; then this person's comment becomes irrelevant and we no longer need abortion after 23 weeks?
If the fetus is wanted, then it is a child.
If the child isn't wanted, then it is a fetus.
Fetuses don't have rights, children do.
It would be a baby if you took it out is a social effect. It's also a baby if you do a sonogram and it's cute. At that point society takes an interest because it's programmed to care for things that are cute.
There are two effects though.
If you take it out, legally it's a baby because the law protects anybody outside of the mother. It's a murder thing, an agreed no exceptions thing needed to protect everybody.
If you don't take it out, it's an abortion agreement thing - when it's cute, it can't be aborted. That protects by compromise society's instinct to care for cute things. It's not a murder issue but a social agreement inside the mother.
rhhardin said...
It would be a baby if you took it out is a social effect. It's also a baby if you do a sonogram and it's cute. At that point society takes an interest because it's programmed to care for things that are cute.
How long would you last in a society where people were voted up or down based on their appeal to others?
How long would you last in a society where people were voted up or down based on their appeal to others?
It's based on laws against murder, not appeal, once you're born. Babies however are cute and that's now the species hasn't died off in the meantime.
Inside the mother, it's a matter of how many votes you get to arrive at an agreement after how many weeks the fetus is cute. It's a political matter. People will vote on it based on how cute when, and then that's the abortion rule.
Geoff Matthews nails it at 6:57
Things are What Ever a woman WANTS them to be
The question is addressed by noticing what ordinary language does with the situation. A law that follows that will work out. A law that doesn't won't.
I suppose it's a good thing Gov. Ralph Northam wasn't on hand for the delivery.
What a horrible situation to be in. I had 2 perfectly healthy, full term babies, and was still on edge that they would somehow stop breathing anytime they were out of my sight. I can’t imagine going through that with the knowledge that it is the likely outcome.
The comment is nonsensical. Yes, NICU is extremely expensive, but is there ever any question that it will be managed? If there’s not insurance or charitable support or whatever, is there a second’s controversy that Medicaid or similar kicks in? I doubt it. Not all situations are the same.
People do try to use the "how can you be against abortion if you aren't willing to pay to raise the child?" all the time. But of course, you can be against murder without saying you want to financially support every person not being murdered.
In this case, doctors are going to save lives and then everyone will work out the cost together. It's the same thing that would happen if a gangbanger comes in with a gunshot to the spine, an undocumented worker comes in to the emergency room from a car accident, or your beloved friend goes into the emergency room having had a heart attack.
But costs go down as they figure out more and more how to do things.
But the idea that the baby is too expensive (or your granny, or you) are too expensive is very National Healthcare. These people might think that's an argument for abortion, but they better get used to these decisions being made for them based on financial decisions if they really want medicare for all.
When the CEO of a company (who was it? Yahoo?) mentioned insurance costs for everyone in the company had gone up because there was a baby that had been born who was very expensive, people freaked out. How dare he shame the mother?
I don't think we are very realistic about health care costs and services in this country, We do seem pretty comfortable though making judgements about who deserves it. Starting with cutting off babies from the NICU to politically hurt people who might be against abortion.
Do the parents get credit for the other 10 weeks? Do they still have time to change their minds about abortion?
First, congratulations to mother, father, and baby, and wish them well. Second, there is evidence that the primary issue with medical care provision is price, not cost. Third, health care begins with personal responsibility, and, it seems, education reform. As for our lives, they are chaotic (i.e. "evolution"), and in a civilized society there is a hierarchy and distribution of rights and responsibilities.
Pro abortion arguments go to eugenics so quickly, don't they?
if society saves babies
then they must also buy condoms for Sandra Fluke
This story promotes the understanding that there is a distribution of circumstances, including edge cases, but that in each pregnancy there is a mother, a father, and a child, whose rights and responsibilities are reconciled to reach a conclusion on the fate of each.
this story fully demonstrates, it's the quality of the character of the people who created you and are "advocating" for you...
Yes, a voice for the baby without a voice. They created and cared for you: mother and father, first, and attending physicians and nurses.
The mother had to deliver early because of pre-eclampsia. Commenters asked me why I thought nurses in the NICU and doctors at hospitals, in these situations, were heroes. This is why. They do heroic, intensive, miraculous work.
MayBee said...
But costs go down as they figure out more and more how to do things.
In general, the cost of thing we already know how to do keeps going down.
Unfortunately* they keep coming up with new and more expensive ways to keep us alive and healthy.
*and by unfortunately, I mean isn't it a fucking awesome time to be alive!
OMG this means a fetus is a living person worth saving, except to a Nazi to whom it’s a living non-person only to be exterminated.
And this is why, in these situations, parents should give birth at a level 4 NICU where they have experience with micro-preemies. You don't want to be in a situation where you're trying to transfer to the NICU.
"Wozniak said the hospital has had its fair share of “23-weekers,” but Saybie’s diminutive size, which was caused in part by the preeclampsia, made her situation all the more challenging. It was difficult to find properly sized equipment, he said, noting that even the NICU resuscitation beds’ built-in scales were unable to register her weight because they couldn’t go below 300 grams.
The first thing Wozniak and his team had to do was put in a breathing tube. One about the size of a juice-box straw needed to be cut down before it was successfully inserted"
"It would be a baby if you took it out is a social effect. It's also a baby if you do a sonogram and it's cute. At that point society takes an interest because it's programmed to care for things that are cute."
The baby was not cute when it came out at that age. Another thing that's not cute is a Caesarean section. Try it some time. I have. Twice. It was a very special self-sacrifice by the woman to go through with the surgery when the chances were so high that the baby would die. You can diminish women for our love of cuteness all you want, but you sound very ignorant putting that here. The baby looked awful when it came out, and a Caesarean feels and looks terrible. This isn't anything like cuteness, and many people in this situation get to see their baby only to see it die.
I don’t see relevance to “the abortion issue” and think it’s sad that some people can’t separate from politics long enough to admire the medical advances we Americans make. This is what we do. The effort to save every premature birth is how we roll. Celebrate life.
NCIU is expensive. Replacing hips in the elderly is expensive. Cancer medication is expensive.
The type of society that will arbitrarily decide who lives and dies solely based on how much they cost is a horrific idea. It is a morally corrupt and soulless society.
Sarah Palin had it 100% correct. Faceless government bureaucrats deciding on who has worth. Who can get medical attention. Who can live and who must suffer and die. All based on rationing and cost is the definition of Death Panels.
I'm all for doing a cost benefit analysis on decisions on things in my life....but not on OTHER people's lives. And especially not by a bunch of government lackeys who can have ulterior motives. Perhaps a person needing medical care can be denied care not JUST for cost but for reasons of being Jewish---Black---or other undesirable characteristics like belonging to an opposing political party.
Think that doesn't happen. Read some Soviet history. Check out Margaret Sanger.
Duuuuur...NICU.
" a Caesarean feels and looks terrible."
Althouse is right. And this early the mother was more likely to loose her uterus and future fertility. The smaller the uterus is for the C-section, the harder it is. A different situation to do a C-section at 34 weeks vs. 23 weeks. Uterus much smaller at 23 weeks.
The baby looked awful when it came out
Do you think so?
When I had my ultrasound decades ago, before they were nearly as detailed as they are now- I honestly thought my little nugget was just cuter than other people's ultra sound photos. I bet the parents thought Saybie was the most beautiful sight they had ever seen.
The modern whiny left want American to be one big failed Indian Reservation. Nobody needs to work, and everything is free. Alcohol drugs dead babies. But it's all free somehow.
It was a very special self-sacrifice by the woman to go through with the surgery when the chances were so high that the baby would die
The caesarian was for the mother's health and she chose to try to save the baby too.
My niece has two boys by caesarian done to deal with pre-eclampsia in the third trimester.
Pre-eclampsia is rare at 13 weeks.
a fetus is a living person worth saving
Worth saving? It depends on how we reconcile individual dignity, intrinsic value, and, perhaps, inordinate worth.
Pregnancy Visual Timeline with pictures
With a presumptive consciousness from around the fifth week.
Instead of sexual education, which everyone seems to understand implicitly and enjoy exploring on their own time, there should be pregnancy education that teaches best practices to both girls and boys, and religious/moral education to teach best practices of personal responsibility and self-moderation. Perhaps the latter could integrate history lessons or myths to help demonstrate the fallacies and consequences of immoral orientations and behaviors.
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...
I don’t see relevance to “the abortion issue”
Really? If so, it's because "relevance" applies to two different things that may or may not have some meaningful relationship. You don't speak of relevance when it's one and the same thing.
But here you go: The thing itself is exactly the same whether it is inside or outside the mother. But if it is outside the mother it is a baby with human rights and if it's inside the mother it is a fetus with no rights. But you're right, there is no relevance to the abortion question. It's just politics.
Ann Althouse said...
The baby was not cute when it came out at that age
But, of course, it had come out, so a different set of rules applies.
This is a horrible argument against abortion.
23 weeks, healthy, but the mom has a health condition forcing her to deliver early and hope for the best.
It’s a human being, not a tumor. Good Lord.
Who is paying for the baby's hospital care?
Nothing turns me away from the pro-abortion people faster than their suggestion that some babies are just to costly to be bothered saving. While we're at it, let's expand the list of crimes suitable for capital punishment and take the guilty directly from the courtroom to the gallows (no expensive drugs -- ropes are reusable). No need to pay for prison guards and three meals a day. And let's let elderly people hobble in pain because knee and hip replacements are expensive while we're at it.
"I bet the parents thought Saybie was the most beautiful sight they had ever seen."
I am sure. But we all know what parents see is different from what others see. For many it is difficult to watch what a baby needs to go through when she needs to to be hooked up to medical equipment.
Full term babies are pink and beautiful to objective eyes. Full term babies are incredibly cute -- with the exception of the Seinfeld "ugly baby" episode.
Seems like a story about the miracle of survival against long odds, but that’s just me.
Cuteness is for voting on the rule, inside the mother; it's the ordinary baby, after birth, cute evolutionarily only so that instinct is to give it care.
One's to line up the abortion rule with how society feels about the cuteness cutoff date; and the other is a rule against murder of anybody outside the mother, a rule that protects everybody.
Blogger Dust Bunny Queen said...
NCIU is expensive. Replacing hips in the elderly is expensive. Cancer medication is expensive.
Don’t worry about it though, Ezekiel Emanuel, Obamacare adviser, has put an exception in his paper for politicians.
https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/handle/10822/759521
He didn’t say “politicians” of course, just people of exceptional use to society, so I am thinking billionaires will qualify too, as long as they contribute to ’The Party.'
I’m sure that people who make utilitarian arguments about making life or death decisions based on costs and benefits to society will gladly give up their right to advanced care when they hit 65, right?
Of course they will. They’re highly principled.
In their own minds.
In the workers paradise they had “party hospitals” where rules about scarcity didn’t apply. We need to bring socialism here. I am sure there are no party hospitals in Cuba, for instance, right? No, party members just fly off the island.
My niece has two boys by caesarian done to deal with pre-eclampsia in the third trimester.
It's hard to have a baby born at 29 weeks, but that's a 3rd trimester birth; parents in the 3rd trimester are much luckier then parents with a 23 week old, 2nd trimester baby. Every day in the womb increases survival rates for micros. 2nd trimester pre-eclampsia that threatens to transition to eclampsia is very unfortunate.
It's arbitrary what the rule would be for a fetus reimplanted in the mother, except it's not poetically arbitrary. What does ordinary language say about the situation, ought always to be the question.
Why is there no bright line? There isn't even at birth, there's just a rule system change. The murder rule dominates the cute fetus rule.
In actuality you learn to be a human. And you learn by being treated as a human. How much time is spent doing that!
Hence the joke, about a newborn, "He hardly seems human."
I wonder if Cavell's discussion of knowing what a chair is, is online enough to read. Basically everybody agrees what a chair is, and what isn't a chair but can serve as a chair, and what a marginal case is. You don't know what it is you know about chairs, but you know it poetically, and there's surprising agreement.
If you don't know what a marginal case is, you don't know what a chair is. Somebody might bring in dogma and loses his sense of what a chair is.
Yes, here's Cavell. Scroll back a half page and read. The effect sought is amazement what you know without knowing.
https://tinyurl.com/y6svq4ax
" I bet the parents thought Saybie was the most beautiful sight they had ever seen."
Yes, but not because they thought it was cute. Many people in that situation would choose palliative care and would be horrified at the condition the baby was in. Seeing that on a sonogram is very different from having it out in the light and air that it's not ready to deal with. You're looking at it for the first time and it's dying. Your instinct could be to see it as sad but to accept the inevitable and work through your own grief.
I think the decision to try to save it was inherent in the decision to have the Caesarean, which was made before seeing it outside the womb. I imagine that part of the horror of seeing the baby in that condition would be worrying that you were being selfish to put it through the heroic medical efforts, which could be seen as experimenting on and torturing the poor thing. How many babies like Saybie suffer for a long time and then die? Of course the neonatalist is enthusiastic, but he's not talking about the babies that died and what they went through as doctors developed their ability to save a person that small.
You're looking at it for the first time and it's dying.
It's a really horrible situation when lungs are not mature enough to breathe.
That’s right. I don’t see relevance to the abortion “political” issue. Not in a story about NICU heroics. The closest policy issue it touches for me is actuarial in nature. These attempts at saving preemies and our honesty in recording “live births” is what skews our data on infant mortality, unlike many countries that fudge the data if the newborn lives less than a day. This story brought nothing new to the abortion debate.
" think the decision to try to save it was inherent in the decision to have the Caesarean,"
It might have been a crash-C. Eclampsia can cause seizures. Vaginal birth could be too dangerous for the mother.
Yes, but not because they thought it was cute.
Cuteness is part of the general abortion argument, not this or that instance.
Right-to-lifers try to make it part of the instance with mother must view sonogram laws and so forth, hoping it works also in specific cases, but you're trying to convince voters, not mothers.
Cuteness after birth is evolutionarily important - you don't abandon the baby owing to instinct, mostly. If the baby is a mess, this may not work, but the laws take over in any case then.
Two different sets of rules - preserving society's instinct about cuteness in the abortion laws, and enforcing the laws against murder after birth.
Odd cases seem to show that once it's been outside the mother, the murder laws protect it, as far as ordinary language goes.
Many people in that situation would choose palliative care and would be horrified at the condition the baby was in.
Not and still be human. I think you spent too many years in your ivory tower, Althouse.
"A blob of tissue can be cute, too" said the blob of differentiated tissue.
"A blob of tissue can be cute, too" said the blob of differentiated tissue.
That's the thing about ordinary langauge. You have to look and see what ordinary language says. Blob of tissue doesn't cut it for cuteness.
One of Descartes's tricks about doubt was worrying about the most uninteresting things possible - how do I know it's a ball of wax? I only really see the front of it, and only a surface at that ....
The point of uninteresting things is that you lose all the ordinary criteria that the languages uses in expressing interest. So all that's left is doubt.
How do I know it's a Robin? Well the red breast, the morning calls, etc. Lots of ways. Nothing about it's possibly being a fake bird comes up unless somebody raises it somehow, like a well know prankster was seen by that tree...
Who is paying for the baby's hospital care and future development issues?
This will be remembered, because it can easily be used on the elderly and other infirmed
How much is this trans conversion costing?
What about the 15-20% who will develop schizophrenia from pot usage?
At 8.6 oz could we call this a partial-birth birth?
How much do all these STD’s cost?
The doctor say I got a fish in my tubes and if I ever have a baby it'll be a mackerel.
Of course the oncologist is enthusiastic, but he's not talking about the people that died and what they went through as doctors developed their ability to save a person with cancer.
Of course the rheumatologists is enthusiastic, but he's not talking about the people that died and what they went through as doctors developed their ability to save a person with AIDS.
Should I go on?
The Miracle of Birth with cute babies plopping out.
Tear, tear, tear
Goes your vagina!
Never will it be
Its cute little self again
But the good news is
If you have a few more kids
The rest will basically
Plop right out
the choices the parents had was to deliver and try to save or abort. Palliative care can only happen after the attempt to save. This is very similar to Rick Santorum's situation. Their child did not live. Some very bad faith people accuse him of aborting his child and calling him a hypocrite. But delivering a very young child in hopes that medicine can save its life is very different than dismembering it in utero.
"Who is paying..."
I thought it was the government's responsibility to care for its citizens from NICU to grave. Free healthcare, free education, free housing, free Obama phone, free, free free.
Of course the neonatalist is enthusiastic, but he's not talking about the babies that died and what they went through as doctors developed their ability to save a person that small."
A slip of the tongue?
It might have been a crash-C. Eclampsia can cause seizures. Vaginal birth could be too dangerous for the mother.
Yes. I wonder about lung maturity. We had a case that I describe in one of my books. A young woman had a melanoma I removed from her leg. She came back pregnant a couple of years later. I think pregnancy can "wake up" melanomas and had warned her but she wanted a baby. Sure enough the melanoma recurred and did so rapidly. She refused abortion and we did a c-section at about 23 weeks when the L/S ratio was in the viable range. The baby was OK and her melanoma went away. That was about 30 years ago and neonatology has come a long way but that baby was a lot bigger.
It would be horrible to live in a country where health care decisions are made by government bureaucrats. Thank God we have the American system, where such decisions are made by clerks at insurance companies.
The baby was not cute when it came out at that age. Another thing that's not cute is a Caesarean section. Try it some time. I have. Twice. It was a very special self-sacrifice
Nonsense. C-section is much easier than natural birth. Plus which you keep your chocha nice and snappy for hubby or whoever's next. Cs are very fashioanble...the cut is on a bikini line now. Sacrifice, forsooth!
Blogger rhhardin said...
How long would you last in a society where people were voted up or down based on their appeal to others?
It's based on laws against murder, not appeal, once you're born. Babies however are cute and that's now the species hasn't died off in the meantime.
You're the king of the cop-out, rh. You're all Mr. Constitution. Well, the Constitution is silent on murder, would you believe it? The fact that we can't ice retirees with too much time on their hands and their consumption ahead, productivity behind them, is purely a social construct that could definitely go the other way.
You want to kill babies. That's fine, just own it.
Someone go ask RGB is the woman was a mother before the surgery. If not, why not?
the American system, where such decisions are made by clerks at insurance companies
It mitigates catastrophic failures forced by single/central "expert" designs, and engenders greater accountability through distribution and proximity. That said, the evidence suggests that, in other than edge cases, the issue is price, not cost, and that should be addressed before "shared" solutions.
"It might have been a crash-C. Eclampsia can cause seizures. Vaginal birth could be too dangerous for the mother."
Yes, but I meant that the other choice was an abortion. I think an abortion would be safer for the mother than a Caesarean, and if the baby was doomed, it might be considered the better choose on behalf of the baby. But I think there is a moral compunction against euthanizing the baby, which is what the abortion would be for the parents who want the child (and from onlooking pro-lifers).
Yes, but not because they thought it was cute.
I get that's your opinion, but I can see beauty in that baby. I really think people/parents see things differently through love and/or hormones.
wwww-
I am sure. But we all know what parents see is different from what others see.
Absolutely. I was talking about what the parents see.
(I agree with you about full term human babies, but when I was dating my now husband, he told me in utter disbelief that his sister thought babies were cute. He said kittens and puppies are cute, but humans....no! Which is maybe the way a 20 year old male should be thinking. By the time we were ready to have children, he thought babies were the cutest thing in the world)
Smiling Jack said...
It would be horrible to live in a country where health care decisions are made by government bureaucrats. Thank God we have the American system, where such decisions are made by clerks at insurance companies.
5/30/19, 11:02 AM
But that is just it, Smiling Jack, the parent in consultation with their medical team made the decision.
If a clerk was ever consulted his or her information that he or she gave did not deter the parents decision to have the baby.
The government never should have been allowed into the doctor/patient relationship at all. And if anything, should be removed entirely from the doctor/patient relationship.
Might the melanoma still gone away, and the baby be delivered in a more healthy state?
I don't think the mother would have made it to full term. You could read the book to get the rest of the story. The medical literature acknowledges that pregnancy and birth control pills stimulate melanocytes. It did not associate melanoma with pregnancy at the time I wrote the book,.
There have been a few since then.
Overall, PAM was associated with a 17% higher mortality compared with melanoma diagnosed in female patients who were not pregnant
The book, if you are interested, is here.
this success years later, which might have not been so notable if you had merely motitored your patient's melanomas through her pregnancy and let nature run its course...
Her melanoma melted away after the c-section and she was free of it 15 years later. The baby was fine. The book is a memoir with successes and failures.
A live human being is a blow to abortion rights. Remind me why they call this position liberal?
"would argue against health insurance for everyone. NICU is expensive!"/"I think this IS a blow to abortion rights. Who is paying for the baby's hospital care and future development issues?"
Hmm. Sounds like a prog inching toward the realization that insurance and care are different things.
Anyway, I propose kicking out the invaders from Central America and spending the billions saved on pre-term American babies.
These sorts of stories really reveal the Eugenics attitudes of the pro-abortion crowd. It also shows that deep down, they know that a fetus is a human being, but they have to say the pro-abort lie out loud "it's a clump of cells" to remain in the Club.
Fetus is a technical term of art to identify and characterize a stage in early human development. Does a doctor refer to a woman's baby as a fetus? In her presence? Perhaps if the baby is to be planned, and to dissociate from the human life developing in her womb.
Her melanoma melted away after the c-section and she was free of it 15 years later.
I believe there was a discussion of a cancer and hormonal link. So, the c-section was the proximate cause; but, ending the pregnancy with the birth of her child was the immediate cause to curbing the viability of the cancer.
Ring of Fire
for babies.
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