Jean-Michel Turpin

Each year in France, 40,000 premature babies are born. Of these, 9,000 are born up to three months premature, and are considered ãseverely prematureä. Helping them survive is the biggest present challenge for the medical world, a struggle carried out in but a few highly-specialized hospital wards. On the fourth floor of the Antoine Béclère Hospital in Clamart, a suburb of Paris, in the neo-natal intensive care unit,

Professor Michel Dehan and his team monitor these infants around the clock. Each one of them was delivered much too soon. Weighing only 500 to 700 grams (between 1 and 2 lb.), while their vital organs are already formed, most of these babies, however, are not physiologically mature enough for their hormonal and enzymatic systems to function properly. Furthermore, their brain is not fully developed and has not completed and the necessary nerve connections. Because of this, highly premature babies are vulnerable and stand a greater risk of having a disability than a baby born at term. Preventing lesions is as yet impossible, but today signs of damage can easily be detected through sophisticated daily examinations. In most cases, doctors can formulate reliable diagnoses and prognoses. Half of all premature babies born between 5 ¸ and 6 ¸ months of gestation survive if they weigh over 600 grams (approximately 1 ¸ lb.), and 20% experience more or less serious residual damage.

Length of gestation before birth is an all-important factor of survival, as well as weight at birth. Because they are not physiologically and biologically mature, it appears impossible to save foetuses less than 24 weeks old.

It is a deep respect for children that led this medical team to take into consideration the pain felt by these infants. Based on observation, doctors and nurses have drawn up an evaluation grid that is now used in many neonatal care units, and has helped to advance medical knowledge and improve the comfort of premature babies in incubators.

Parents go through a very difficult time during the first few days after delivery, when their child is placed in an intensive care unit. The strong emotional ties between care-givers and their tiny patients, and their families, represent greatly-needed important moral support that helps parents re-adjust and eventually take part in the daily care given to their child. After several weeks, and sometimes several months, the premature infant’s discharge from hospital and arrival home is often experienced as a rebirth.