Stanford Medicine / Fall 2013 /
If a pregnant woman rushes into a hospital with labor pains, one of the first questions she’s asked is how long she’s been pregnant. If the answer is much less than the usual nine months, then the normal course of action — wheeling the soon-to-be mother to a labor and delivery room — is set aside. Instead, doctors immediately begin giving her drugs to stop contractions that could deliver the baby too soon, then inject her with steroids that speed the development of the infant’s underdeveloped lungs. Finally, they alert the neonatal intensive care unit that there may be a premature baby on its way soon, one who needs extra attention… Read more at Stanford Medicine.