Ever wonder what it's like to be a tiny, vulnerable newborn? Some nurses in Illinois are finding out with an innovative new program
that allows them to experience some of the abrupt changes that take
place for the tiniest babies in the moments after their birth. The
nurses are learning to better simulate the soothing world of the womb
for preemies in the days following their birth so that they can weather
the transition from a warm and relatively quiet uterus to the bustling
world of the NICU. Nurses drink from bottles and suck on
pacifiers after having lain in a fetal position to simulate some of the
sensory input a preemie experiences. (I am wondering if there
aren't some nutjobs out there who would pay serious money to see this?)
This
sounds like a good attempt and is probably the best we can really do to
simulate a baby's experience but I have to wonder if it is even
possible to remotely understand everything that's going on within a
tiny baby during those days.
