Daily Mail
“She now weighs 5½lbs and is getting stronger by the day”
Current ethical guidelines in the UK on the care of very premature infants do not suggest providing active care for babies born at 22 weeks six days and earlier.
But when they put her on the scales she weighed 1lb, the minimum weight for a baby to be considered viable, so they fought to keep her alive.
It was only when she was safely on a ventilator that doctors discovered a pair of scissors had been accidentally left on the scales and that Maddalena actually only weighed 382g.
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I doubt the scissors thingy was an accident. More like a trick by one of those sneaky pro-life nurses.
platypus on December 17, 2012 at 10:16 PM
Nice job.
NeoKong on December 17, 2012 at 10:22 PM
When your ethical guidelines include “eh, just leave it to die,” you’re doing it wrong.
Ah, the NHS, pride of whatever that is that is now where Great Britain used to be.
Gingotts on December 17, 2012 at 10:23 PM
It just goes to show you that those that use “viability” as a right to life are wrong. Viability is a subjective concept and not a legal or medical one.
melle1228 on December 17, 2012 at 10:25 PM
Bah! They should have let her die for insufficient weight.
Now, where were we? Oh yeah, can you believe those heartless conservatives won’t just surrender their guns?
The Count on December 17, 2012 at 10:28 PM
Another looong but excellent story about another extreme premie beating the odds.
http://www.tampabay.com/specials/2012/reports/juniper/
stenwin77 on December 17, 2012 at 10:33 PM
Once the scissors mistake was discovered the doctors used those same scissors to post-birth abort the baby.
“Can’t have people just popping off and flouting the rules, we have budgets to meet” the hospital administrator said afterward.
Bishop on December 17, 2012 at 10:35 PM
Viability is meaningless. Put a number of weeks on it and run with it. But by the same token, it is possible that cloning technology would obviate the debate; that “cluster of cells” wouldn’t need a human body to gestate.
alwaysfiredup on December 17, 2012 at 10:52 PM
“accidentally”
Caiwyn on December 17, 2012 at 10:53 PM
Did they use the Machine That Goes ‘Ping’?
Left Coast Right Mind on December 17, 2012 at 11:41 PM
Sick that they even think about letting children die. God bless our stone cold hearts that we can allow this in our world.
cptacek on December 17, 2012 at 11:44 PM
so beautiful
welcome to this f*cked up, beautiful world.
blatantblue on December 18, 2012 at 12:06 AM
I love it when they switch from avoirdupois to metric, it makes me feel so facile, when they could have said, the baby was really .84 LBS to be consistent, or to mix it up more they could have said .06 stone.
bour3 on December 18, 2012 at 2:14 AM
Palliative care only under 23 weeks is standard procedure in the US as well. The chance of survival is small (95%). Talk to NICU nurses sometime about babies on the edge of viability. You could start here.
I’m as pro-life as they come, but these decisions are harder and uglier than people make them out to be. Viability IS a medical fact, and there is an edge beyond which medical science really can’t do anything to correct or create it. Reasonable people can disagree over whether it’s noble to try, or whether it’s experimental and fills a short, fragile life with needless pain. Obviously, a success story makes everyone happy, but it’s news because it’s rare.
Quisp on December 18, 2012 at 7:13 AM
Sorry, lost a sentence somewhere. Chance of survival is less than 10%, and chance of profound disability is greater than 95%.
Quisp on December 18, 2012 at 7:14 AM
In my mind I truly believe that every baby born alive should be given the same treatment to try and sustain life. In the event that they survive it is only by the grace of God. EVERY life is one that is allowed by God, every life taken is one allowed by God. I have had multiple miscarriages and 1 son who died at 5 months. My heart was broken, but I have to keep on thinking that He knows better than I do. All of it has a meaning and how it intertwines into our lives and helps us grow, or not, is up to us. Each baby could ONLY have been created by God allowing it. Every movement, every thought, every EVERYTHING is His will. The days I try to be the one in the drivers seat are the days I don’t feel peace. Somehow, it happened that this baby was given extraordinary care. I don’t believe in coincidence, she has a purpose on this earth, no matter how long she lives or whether or not she is considered “perfect”.
God bless this family and may their little one bring them much joy.
redlucy on December 18, 2012 at 8:03 AM
((redlucy))
cptacek on December 18, 2012 at 9:39 AM