NICU

I was at clinicals last week and was assigned to the NICU or neonatal intensive care unit. I don't like ICU so was not real excited about my assignment, but I went because it would be an interesting learning experience (plus, sometimes in Maternity there isn't much to do. At least I would have something to do). For HIPPA reasons, I won't tell you what hospital I was in, what day it was, etc, but I can tell you it was a neat experience. I saw two emergency C-sections. One of them scared me because the baby was not doing well when it came out. It's heart beat was 8 and breathing was 3-4 or so (a baby's heart beat should be 140 and breathing 30-40). I thought the baby was just dead. Thanks to modern medicine and amazing nurses the baby lived. They brought the baby around and got it's heart rate up, but the breathing wasn't great so they had to help it through a c-pap (what Matt used to help him keep breathing due to sleep apnea). It was possibly one of the scariest and most heart breaking things I have ever seen. The baby wasn't moving, was very floppy, and was blue all over. I thank Heavenly Father for modern medicine and the miracles it works every day. I told the nurse later on that they had saved the baby's life. She said that she doesn't really think about it that way, she's just happy when the babies start to breath again. I'm so glad I am studying to be a nurse. What an awsome thing to be able to save peoples lives.