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lifeI h(. Winchester Star________________________ Monday, November 14. 1994Slice oVirginiaHome“Where are j question has h as long as I cai Do I tell them the state I was lived in for thr my birth? Or d am from the st family lived in a year?Pondering wl correct, a pensi spreads on my who asked mus me daft, or wor come up with a lie. So deciding that my family over the Unitec a raised eyebro question. “Why Army brat?” With me thin was, I wouldn’t called a brat”) 1 politely “No,” hi this conversatic find repetitious these same que your life does b Of course, au arises from the dividual and be 10 minutes hav with me explair accent was difTc hers.Driving home I am from Virgi not by blood, be dren from their the love that bo husband who is Chester.My parents g£ opportunity to n people of contrai and modes of livi I will always be £ How many young say that they fish muddy Mississipj Finn; have eaten Crayfish in a par siana; or heard a don’s hecklers cui comine from the 1Lisa Lee, R.N., and Dr. Helen O’Donovan, M.D., care for a newborn In the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Winchester Medical Center.Caring for the Very Little Ones^Regionalization in hospital care was introduced, so that not every hospital had to provide intensive care. It was a landmark in neonatology, but it caused great problems later in the realization that it took babies away from their families.”By MARYNELL EYLESThe Winchester StarLast year, there were 1,530 babies born at Winchester Medical Center. To date in 1994, there have been 1,404 births.On the average, each day two babies were admitted to the Winchester Medical Center’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.The new NICU was opened in July, and is one of the recipients of the Winchester Medical Center’s Auxiliary Lights of Love 1994 fund-raising campaign. The auxiliary met Nov. 7 to hear speaker Kathleen Straight, RN, clinical coordinator of the neonatal unit.Straight is a newcomer to Winchester, and said she is delighted to find community support here. She was employed in Charleston, S.C., previous to her relocation to the Shenandoah Valley, and her past experiences in large hospitals in that city, and in Chicago, did not provide the same feeling of community involvement.Her talk to the auxiliaiy covered five areas of emphasis she thought applicable to the NIC unit: the history of neonatal care in a baby’s strength and ability to stay warm; respiratory assistance: nutri-History of neonatal care dates to the late 1890s when the first incubator was invented, Straight said. “At the Berlin Exposition in 1896, a child hatchery was exhibited. The scientist who displayed that incubator took sick and underweight infants and provided care for them. He moved his exhibit to England, and then to the United States, where he continued his work for about 40 years. In those years, he saved about 5,000 infants in the U.S., and he believed in the then-radical ideas of allowing mothers to help care for their children.”Continuing the recap of history, Straight said that during the 1900s, physicians became concerned primarily with the spread of infection, and set regulations excluding mothers from the care offkflir cinlr infonfo Tkntr urnrn rrnnmn nn/1—Kathleen Straight, RNWhen the baby boom of post-war 1940s occurred, births became a hospital event, instead of a part of home life. Nurseries came into being, where 20 to 30 infants were housed, lined up in incubators.The 1960s saw revolutionary changes in neonatal care, Straight continued, where units dedicated to infants needing intensive care were established. Respirators were developed to help infants breath, thermo-regulators were engineered to help babies maintain their body temperature, and sensors were developed to be taped to babies, automatically regulating temperatures.Straight noted the 1970s as a time of technology explosions in neonatal care, adding, “Disposable products were invented, made expressly in proper sizesfnr fmtf infonff On fkn /]nnm nlt;was a landmark in neonatology, but it caused great problems later in the realization that it took babies away from their families. Just like here, until July, parents had to travel to Fairfax or Charlottesville, for small or bom-sick babies.”The boon in technology continued in the 1980s, with machines that ventilated infants adequately for them to stay alive, considered the highest level of intensive care for infants, Straight said.“Infants could be kept on a ventilator for seven to 10 days, making it possible to save more babies’ lives,” she said.Nutrition has come full circle, she said, coming from mother’s milk to formula, back to mother’s milk as the best nutritional choice for an infant.Probably one of the largest changes was the realization that parental involvement in a baby’s life is of utmost importance.“Now,” Straight said, “we like the idea of Kangaroo Care—where the young are kept close to the mother’s body. Mother and Dad are encouraged to hold the baby. The medical complications are thought to be less hazardous than the benefits derived from the parents’ contact with the infant. It’s sort of embarrassing that it
Newspaper Details
Winchester Star
Winchester, Virginia, US
Mon, Nov 14, 1994
Page 15
Full Page
Clipped by
Stephen K.
USA 12 Aug 2024
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