Meet the Newborns

The Newborns (neonates, if we are going to get technical) are interesting creatures in medicine.  Having spent all of my previous rotations dealing with adults, it was surprising to find out that newborns' heart rates normally approach values that I've only ever seen on my elliptical's heart rate monitor (when I was really, really in shape) and that premies can commonly forget that they are supposed to breathe.  Yup.

Breathing is something that we take for granted, but when you are born into this world that first breath is hard.  Watching a newly delivered baby turn from blue to pink is really an amazing experience.  You want them to cry and scream and fight against you.  You want them to be severely pissed off that you have taken them from their mother's warm tummy and thrust them into this world with its Air and Light and Noise.

It is common among students to refer to newborns as little aliens.  I even heard one person refer to them as "gerbils" because they are kept in plastic cribs and incubators.  But if you pause to think about it, we must seem like the actual aliens.  Existence in the womb is based on the sounds of your mother's heartbeat and voice.  Breathing is not necessary.  You are floating in fluid, feeling the weightlessness associated with buoyancy and the security that comes with confinement.  At some point, you are forcefully expelled from an overstretched uterus, pass through a bony canal (watch out for that pubic bone!), and are held, blue and writhing, in some physician's gloved hands.

Today I watched a woman deliver her baby while she watched the process in the mirror.  The mirror was positioned between her legs at an angle so that she could see her baby's head emerge.  This was a little too much for me.  I pretend to be all about this sort of thing, but in reality, I think that I would faint if I saw the damage being done, you know, "down there" while I was giving birth.  

Also, if you ever have some extra time in clinic, take the time to peruse the What to Expect books.  Mostly this is for the entertainment factor (they are wildly outdated).  For example, I learned that chicken soup is actually good for a cold, but it can't be the Campbell's kind.  If you actually decide to boil some chicken parts and vegetables and make your own chicken stock, then you can feed this to the infant.  Don't forget to skim the fat.  I'm not sure what you are supposed to do with the crying, sick infant while you are homemaking some chicken soup.  The book failed to provide any strategies for this conundrum.

I looked up the meaning of my name in a baby name book (ok, so I had a lot of time waiting for patients to show up to clinic) and it said: "from Greek mythology, goddess of the moon, hunting, and fertility".  That's an interesting combo and I'm not sure how to interpret this, but I do like the part about being a Greek goddess.  Let's just say though that this goddess of fertility will not be holding up a mirror to watch her little alien be born anytime soon.