USA. ARIZONA. Phoenix. Preemie Baby unit at St Joseph's Hospital. The final ward, family photos of "Graduate" babies who have gone home.
The smallest patients in the newborn intensive care nursery at St JosephÕs Hospital owe their lives Ð and their excellent prospects for living normally Ð to a statewide program that in its first six years, changed ArizonaÕs newborn mortality rate from the bottom to the top quartile nationwide.
David Hurn spent a year in the preemie ard at St JosephÕs. He observed how each baby was gradually transformed in the minds of its parents from a pathetic, wired-up creature to a loved child with a personality and a future. HurnÕs perceptions evolved in much the same way. At first he was appalled by the preemies and could not tell them apart; by the end of his stay he found the five- and six pounders in the regular nursery next door coarse by comparison. Anne Fadiman. 1980.