Premature births are on the rise, and thanks to medical advances, survival rates have increased dramatically. Yet, beyond the actual science of neonatal care, studies have shown that an individualized and family-oriented approach in the immediate weeks following delivery can provide conditions that foster healthy brain development at the sensitive newborn stage, and may promise a better prognosis down the road.
Sarah wasn’t anticipating any complications in the delivery of her seventh child as the births of all her previous children had been smooth and full term. Yet when complications set in during her thirty-first week she knew she was headed for trouble. In the hospital she was immediately administered a steroid shot to help her unborn baby’s lungs develop yet surprisingly the hospital refused to admit her for delivery. All NICU units in Yerushalayim were overbooked and priority given to women already in labor. Sarah was finally sent by ambulance to Meir Hospital in the center of the country.
To her and her husband this seemed to be another notch in an already petrifying experience. In the end she realized how truly fortuitous her choice of hospitals was.…
Good Chances
The sight of a baby born many weeks before term perhaps only a quarter of the size of a robust full-term infant is both awe-evoking and petrifying. Who can see such a tiny human being without instinctively offering a silent prayer that Hashem should protect and strengthen this fragile child?
Today many such prayers are being answered. Babies born at twenty-seven weeks of gestation now enjoy a 90 percent survival rate and even those born as early as twenty-five weeks — fifteen weeks before term! — stand a good chance of surviving estimated at 50 to 80 percent. In addition the incidence of premature births has increased with the growth of reproductive technology making these numbers all the more significant.
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