the eric update - day 381: the micropreemie odds. in black and white.

odin is doing so fantastically that it's almost easy to sometimes forget that the effects of being born extremely premature can last long after you've left the nicu.



an article in today's chicago tribune highlights the odds:

""Look, even with all our technology, there's more than a 50 percent chance your baby could have some significant issues long-term with all kinds of costs financially, emotionally, and mentally," he said. "That's something parents need to know and think about.""

i bring this up because just recently there was a video segment on the today show that was your basic human interest, gee whiz, look at how modern medicine can save the smallest of the small ones these days. and jeeez, it set off a firestorm in various prematurity mailing lists because it claimed that 80 percent of premature infants suffer no long term consequences thanks to the wonders of modern medicine, conveniently forgetting that 80 percent of premature births occur after 30 weeks and less than 5 percent occur before 25 weeks.

and you can probably guess which group ends up with the disproportionate degree of long term complications.

i know that even some of my own relatives don't like it when i mention such things, but it's always best to hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

even if sometimes it's a drag that you have to.

we're not overly neurotic about it, since in some sense what ever will be will be, but we do what we can to try and provide odin with a stimulating environment on the theory that it certainly can't hurt and it maybe it might even help delay or diminish any impending issues ( or, of course, maybe there aren't any impending issues at all ).

i've heard it can get even more difficult as time goes on, as you try to discern whether or not this behavior or that behavior has it's roots in being born too soon and if perhaps it might be time to call in "the professionals".

but today we'll cut odin some slack as he decides that it would be a grand time to try to pound the clover piece in the "wrong" hole while testing his "outside" voice at heretofore unheard of levels.

i mean, sometimes a boy just has to be a boy, right :-)