Early An Intimate History of Premature Birth and What It Teaches Us About Being Human

Sarah DiGregorio, Ann Marie Gideon

eAudio - 2020

Inspired by the author's harrowing experience giving birth to her premature daughter, a compelling and empathetic work that combines memoir with rigorous reporting to tell the story of neonatology—and to meditate on the questions raised by premature birth.The heart of many hospitals is the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). It is a place where humanity, ethics, and science collide in dramatic and deeply personal ways as parents, doctors, and nurses grapple with sometimes unanswerable questions: When does life begin? When and how should life end? And what does it mean to be human?Nearly twenty years ago, Dr. John D. Lantos wrote The Lazarus Case, a seminal work on ethical dilemmas in neonatology. He described the NICU as "a str...ong, strange, powerful place." The NICU is a place made of stories—the stories of mothers and babies who spend days, weeks, and even months waiting to go home, and the dedicated clinicians who care for these... more