Famous Among Top Surgeons in the 90s-Chapter 1986: No Breath?
This child was only thirty-five weeks in the mother’s womb, unable to reach thirty-seven weeks, making him a genuine premature infant, one who shouldn’t have been born yet. The baby’s premature arrival was entirely because the parents attended a dinner at a friend’s house tonight, never expecting the joyful return home would meet with a sudden disaster. From then on, this once happy little family was destroyed by a drunk van driver.
Thinking of this, the medical staff felt even more compassion for the child born without a mother. Xie Wanying carefully held the child, one hand securely supporting the baby’s small head and neck, the other hand cradling the little hips, truly attentive to the utmost.
The weight of a premature infant is typically less than five pounds, and this baby was only about four and a half pounds, small head circumference, a miniature version of a normal fetus. The medical staff could feel this baby as light as a small angel with wings, ready to fly to heaven at any moment. The doctors were on edge, every action as if walking on thin ice.
A few medical staff gathered around the small platform where the child lay, bustling about, eager to get the child to breathe smoothly first. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮
Gently tapping the small feet of the child.
After many taps, the child made no response.
Then they took various tools, carefully clearing the debris in the child’s tiny mouth and nose, checking if the little nose and mouth were blocked by amniotic fluid and other mucus.
Clearing again and again, the doctors employed their perfectionist skills to the fullest.
The medical staff were all drenched in sweat, every breath hot.
This was reaching the peak of anxiety.
After a long struggle to save this little life, the results were quite average.
It could only be said that the child’s condition was rather severe, and this being a grassroots health center without neonatal specialized rescue medication and equipment, the doctors were like a dexterous woman unable to cook without rice.
"I suspect it’s a problem of hyaline membrane disease," said Doctor Hu. Having not participated in the hands-on rescue, she professionally judged after listening to others’ data reports: "There was no time to give the mother steroid shots before, so this was to be expected."
These words were meant to comfort all the medical staff involved in the rescue from feeling disappointed and frustrated. Since it was expected, it indicated there still was hope to save this little life.
Corticosteroid shots refer to the medication injected into the mother when a fetus is forced to leave the mother’s body before full term, aimed at promoting the fetus’s development, maturing the lungs, and preventing neonatal respiratory distress syndrome.
Neonatal respiratory distress syndrome is what doctors in clinical settings commonly refer to as white lung.
Mentioning white lung, the term is not unfamiliar to anyone who has later endured the hardships of the SARS outbreak.
White lung is not a disease name; it is an X-ray imaging manifestation.
Normally, after inhalation, the lungs expand like a balloon filled with air, appearing black on X-ray images. Similarly, a distended stomach is also black on X-rays.
If there is no inhalation or the patient’s lungs do not expand like inflating a balloon after inhalation, the displayed images on X-ray are not black but white. Therefore, it is commonly called white lung in clinical practice.
The causes of white lung, as seen from the above symptoms, arise from atelectasis, meaning the lungs do not expand.
In radiology, the manifestation of atelectasis besides white lung includes terms doctors often mention, such as ground-glass opacity, which is also an imaging representation after the decrease of air content in the alveoli.
