At around 5 PM we had a sick baby admitted in nursery. The mother was a staff nurse who was 37 years old and the baby had been found to have a lot of edema on a scan this morning – fluid around the lungs, heart in the abdomen and underneath the skin. He did not cry at delivery and needed resuscitation. A quick look showed that he had Down Syndrome. The cord pH was 6.9 – indicating that he was ‘severely asphyxiated’. He was having severe breathing difficulty. Within an hour he had his first seizure. There was a loud murmur when we heard his heart and that meant he probably had a major heart disease too. Normally we do not ‘go all out’ to treat these kind of babies as their outcome is poor and most die or are severely delayed. However it is the parents who make the decision. After talking to the father and the relatives, we continued resuscitation till the decision was made. The father walked in after a few minutes and said – we’ve prayed about it and we would like our baby treated fully. It seemed quite a brave decision to make. We intubated and ventilated the baby. The heart scan confirmed pulmonary hypertension and the saturation of oxygen was difficult to mantain.
Once again I found myself stuck between my medical knowledge and the “Faith” of parents. I still do not think the baby has any chance of a meaningful survival. I still think he may die tonight. I still think that even if he survives, he will be severely retarded and will have multiple health problems – and will probably die sometime later. Am I right? Am I wrong? Is my faith weak? Or am I just being practical and realistic? If this baby does die or has too many problems, does that mean the faith of the parents was meaningless? Was it an emotional decision – not one driven by Faith?
There are a lot of doubts that incidents like this leave me with. I wonder if I will ever find the answers to these questions? Faith…… emotion….. knowledge…… God…… truth… One day I’ll find out.