Baby Er. - Review - book review

AORN Journal, August, 2001 by Karen S. Pettit

BABY ER

By Edward Humes 2000, 320 pp $25 hardback

The author writes this book from a unique perspective. His newborn daughter spent seven days in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) in a large hospital, recovered, and went home. It was not until six years later that he got the idea to write about the things he witnessed in the NICU.

To write the book, the author returned to the NICU at Miller Children's Hospital, Long Beach, Calif, not as a patient's father, but as a journalist and observer. He gained the confidence of patients' family members and staff members. These people shared their heart-wrenching stories with him, and he presents these stories in the book.

Throughout the book, it is apparent that the author is biased against small hospitals. He claims they offer steak dinners and videocassette recorders to new parents, but cannot resuscitate a 28-week-old preemie effectively. He admonishes parents to choose wisely where to deliver and consider what is really important. Some of the chapters are short and tension filled, echoing stinging perceptions, such as "whether the patient lives or dies, hospital billing is forever."

The author weaves together the stories of sick infants and their family members. He includes personal glimpses of physicians and neonatal fellows. Readers share in the moment when a mother writes love letters to her critically ill premature son, hoping he will live to read them.

For a lay person, the author uses surprisingly correct vernacular in speaking about injured children, high-order multiples, gastroschisis, frozen embryos, and other issues. He discusses outdated beliefs and preemie surgery, mixing the unconventional and conventional well.

The author explains the neutral responses that nourish hope but never promise that staff members must give to anxious parents and family members of infants. He also discusses the frustration of nurses, physicians, and social workers in patient care conferences and in dealing with the parents of their patients. He explores how cocaine destroys the placenta, the fetus, and the infant's life.

The history and ethics of neonatology, along with some of its treatments and modalities, also make for interesting reading. For example, the author discusses the use and misuse of oxygen and the epidemic of blindness it caused 50 years ago.

Political strife in the medical arena also is addressed, specifically regarding staffing issues, unions, and the buying and selling of medical facilities. It is evident the author has special insight into the problems nurses and physicians deal with on a day-to-day basis but that usually are not apparent to an outsider.

This book is both touching and sweet as it deals with the lives and deaths of these infants. It is an unvarnished look at the NICU and is great reading for anyone who desires a behind-the-scenes perspective.

This book is available from Simon & Schuster, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

KAREN S. PETTIT RN, BSN, CNOR, C SURGICAL COORDINATOR SOUTHWEST WOMEN'S CARE PHOENIX