Purchase
Discoveries and Triumphs in the Newborn ICU
Beacon Press
February 2012
On Sale: February 7, 2012
176 pages
ISBN: 0807011606
EAN: 9780807011607
Kindle: B005JT1TNY
Hardcover / e-Book
Add to Wish List
Non-Fiction
Half a million babies are born prematurely in the United
States every year. In this gripping medical narrative, Dr.
Adam Wolfberg brings readers into the complex world of
newborn intensive care, where brilliant but imperfect
doctors do all they can to coax life into their tiny,
injured patients. As a specialist in high-risk obstetrics
and the father of a child born prematurely, Wolfberg
explores the profound questions raised by such fragile
beginnings, both from the front lines of the NICU and from
his daughter’s bedside.
His daughter Larissa was born weighing under two pounds, and
he describes the precipitous birth at six months that left
her tenuously hanging on to life in an incubator. Ultrasound
had diagnosed a devastating hemorrhage in her brain that
doctors reasoned would give her only a 50 percent chance of
having a normal IQ. Through Larissa’s early hospital course,
Wolfberg examines the limitations of newborn intensive care
medicine, the science of “neuroplasticity,” and the dilemmas
that surround decision making at the beginning of life.
Wolfberg also takes us into the lab where researchers are
working to improve the futures of children born too soon. He
follows a young scientist, Jason Carmel, who was inspired to
study how the brain adapts to injury when his twin brother
was paralyzed in an accident. Through lucid medical
reporting, Wolfberg details current scientific practices and
discoveries, and explores the profound emotional and ethical
issues raised by the advancing technology that allows us to
save the lives of increasingly undeveloped preemies.
As they make decisions about life-saving care in the first
hours of a premature infant’s life, doctors and parents must
grapple with profound moral and medical questions: How
aggressively should doctors try to save the life of a
premature baby, who will be severely neurologically and
physically impaired? What might that child’s quality of life
be like after millions of dollars are spent on her care?
Wolfberg traces the fits and starts of the physicians,
government policy makers, and lawyers who have struggled
over the years to find the best way to make these wrenching
decisions. Written from Adam Wolfberg’s unique experience as
a reporter, as a medical specialist and researcher, and as
the father of a prematurely born daughter, Fragile
Beginnings lays bare the struggles, discoveries, and
triumphs of the newborn intensive care unit.
Comments
No comments posted.
Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!
| 
© 2003-2024 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy