Born Too Soon Trivia Quiz

Answer: Ventilator

A preemie is a baby born prior to the 37th week of gestation. There are babies who have survived being born as early as in the 22nd week. Babies who are far from being fit to survive outside their mother need special intensive care.

So your little preemie needs help to breathe, which is to be expected as the lungs are the last organ to be fully developed.

An endotracheal tube is connected to a respirator/ventilator. This is a machine responsible for delivering warm, humid air to the baby. To reach this goal, a small plastic tube will be put through its nose or mouth down the trachea. From there it will enter the lungs and the vital oxygen will be delivered there. The staff will watch how much help the little one needs, from a small amount to maximum.

My little baby was born in the mid-nineties, very tiny and, as my late mother called it, resembling just a pound of sugar in weight. He needed respiratory help for months. Those little tubes, the beeping and everything else must shock everyone seeing it the first time, but they are needed for survival.

Answer: Monitor

Be it the ECG and blood pressure, the baby's temperature or cardiorespiratory data, monitors are there to give the needed information, delivered from sensor pads placed on the baby. If possible, it is only one monitor, to give all the information needed in one look.

This baby TV is responsible for most of the beeping going on. Don't panic (at least not at once). Sometimes it just one of the sensor pads got detatched, but this is something to take care of, too. After all: it has to function, if things get serious.

Answer: Feeding tube

Be it that your baby is too weak to suck from breast or bottle, or be it that only some extra help is needed, a feeding tube is in demand. So a tube is put through a nostril or through the mouth, down to the stomach. This tube is used to put food into the belly. Whoever inserts this tube must be careful, to make sure that this tube does not end up in the lung.

The food might be the mama's breast milk, filled with a syringe into the tube, or baby formula, or whatever else a baby might need to eat. This can be done by hand or with a special machine.

When my child was older, especially after he left the hospital, I could give him a new tube myself. As he liked to remove this tube, it was attached with quite a lot of plaster to his face. He started to eat sufficient amounts when he began kindergarten, following the example of the other children. This worked better than chocolate and other temptations we had offered before.

Answer: Phototherapy lamp

Neonatal jaundice is nothing unusual for newborn babies. Even babies with a regular birth date may get this condition, even more the preemies, because everything, including the liver, is less developed. If there is too much bilirubin in the blood, the skin and the whites of the eyes get a yellow tinge.

Phototherapy is used to treat this neonatal jaundice. The baby is exposed to a special blue light with a phototherapy lamp. This reduces the bilirubin in the little body. To ensure that no damage is done to the eyes, the baby gets a mask to wear. This looks like a Hollywood diva's sleeping mask, if you ask me.

Answer: Pulse-oximeter

The pulse-oximeter measures the oxygen saturation in the blood. This happens with an infrared light sensor. That sensor is fastened on the foot or hand of the baby. If you have ever had an operation, you might have worn one on single finger. As the baby is much smaller, it might fit around a whole foot. Medical staff will be happy about a saturation of 90% or higher.

Measuring the saturation is very important. As "Sweet" sang in the 1970s in "Love Is Like Oxygen": "You get too much, you get too high. Not enough and you're gonna die". In the case of the baby, too little oxygen might damage the brain.

This pulse-oximeter is also something going beep. Not all the time as this would be bad news. The thing might have detached itself, or the baby used the cord as a kind of play toy. It's fun to pull your leg high with this string attached on it. My son loved to do this. It looked hilarious.

Answer: Nasal cannula

Somehow surplus oxygen must find a way into your little baby. To achieve this, a plastic tube is attached to an oxygen source, either a portable or stationary generator. Following the tube from there, it will lead you to the head of the baby. It is fastened behind the baby's ears. There are prongs on that tube that end up right in front of the nostrils and the oxygen can be breathed in. And that thing in the face is a nasal cannula.

When our child left the hospital and still needed an extra oxygen supply, we ended up with a small portable generator, and with oxygen bottles, which could be used outside the house.

Our son got off the additional oxygen when he was about one and a half years old.

Answer: CPAP

Continuous positive airway pressure, to give it its full impressive name. It's for the babies who need more help than just a whiff of oxygen from a bottle.

One or two plastic tubes are placed in the baby's nostrils and oxygen is provided under pressure in small quantities. This helps the lungs to remain expanded and reduces the work your baby has to perform to breathe.

But the doctors will try to remove this as soon as possible, the baby has to learn how to breathe alone. Also, too much pressure can damage the alveoli, as even a good thing can have a bad side, too.

Answer: Scales

At least something you can recognize at once!

The baby is weighed daily on, mostly these days, digital scales, to report any tiny gain or loss in weight. It's also measured from head to toe, every centimeter (or whatever measurement you prefer) is recorded.

This is added to all the other information collected about the little preemie. Mine started at about 600 grams and we celebrated every extra kilo. This is something I've never done with my personal gain in weight.

Answer: Incubator

To describe it in laywoman's terms, it looks like an aquarium, with little windows to open on the longer sides. You can fold the lid back, to clean the incubator or to put the baby inside.

The reason for putting the baby in there is to give it a regular temperature in a cozy humid environment. Being so little, there is always the danger that the preemie might dry out, and the skin is very sensitive. After all, baby should still be floating in mama's womb.

Most of everyday treatment and care needed can be done through the little windows. They resemble the little windows you might find on a ticket office at a railway station. If the doctor allows it, you can touch your baby through those openings, maybe caressing, or holding a little foot in your hand. This might feel weird at first. Depending when the preemie slipped into life, there is still a fuzz on the skin, and the skin might feel rubbery. But when the baby grows, it will change into a 'real' baby.

Answer: Percolator

Considering the shift work and long hours in an emergency unit, this is an important item to have around. Something to restore energy and spirit, and something to drink while discussing progress with the team.

While my son was spending his time in neonatal intensive care over twenty years ago, I was offered coffee once. I needed coffee and foolishly accepted it. They put baby food milk into it. Ugh. Most likely they always gulped that stuff pitch black and had no real coffee cream around!

But except for this strange brew I'm thankful for everything they have done.