Cold Baby It was years ago, perhaps the early 80s, and Cindy, a teenaged black woman, gave birth to a baby girl at Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley. It was routine at that time for babies to go to the Nursery for an hour of observation within a few minutes of delivery, but we were right on the cusp of Everything Changing. Those of us in the Delivery area were pressing for keeping mothers and babies together unless there was a real problem…but the nursery staff was still busy defending their turf and wanted to get their hands on those babies. Due to the fact that the baby was about a month premature, a Nursery nurse was present at the birth. She bundled the baby in an armload of warm flannel blankets, allowed the young mom a quick peek, and then whisked the infant to the Nursery. An hour later, Cindy was in the Recovery Room and still hadn’t held her daughter or even had a good look at her…and she was really begging me. So I went to the Nursery, and there was the baby, naked in a warming unit, looking just fine, really. “This baby’s mom really wants to see her,” I said to the nurse. “She just got a quick glimpse, like five minutes after the birth, and she’s young…and I really think it would do her a lot of good to be able to bond with her daughter.” After a few minutes of wrangling, the nurse reluctantly agreed to let me “borrow” the baby, “But only for ten minutes. I mean it. We’re having trouble keeping her temperature up to normal, and I don’t want her to get chilled.” Before she could change her mind, I swaddled the little girl in three or four warm blankets and scooted back to Delivery, with “Just ten minutes, not a second more,” being shouted behind me. As I pulled back the blankets to put the baby in Cindy’s arms, I realized that she had very large breasts. I unwrapped the infant, laid her in the space between Cindy’s breasts, pushed the breasts together and sort of bound them with a large warmed blanket so the baby was snuggled in warmth from all sides. Then I piled a few more blankets on top…and ignored the clock. Cindy cooed to the baby, stroked her hair, touched the tips of her ears…and the clock ticked on. After half an hour, the Nursery nurse came storming over, ready to tear my head off. She took one look at my little invention, then went back to her domain for a baby thermometer. She returned, slid the thermometer into the baby’s armpit, checked in in a couple of minutes, then started removing the top blankets, saying, “We need to get some of these off. This kid’s too hot!”
Posted on: Wed, 03 Sep 2014 18:11:30 +0000
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