Monday, October 09, 2006

Eww, baby, eww

Tonight, at work, I was in on a childbirth. I got to witness the Miracle of Birth -- the human version, not the State Fair farm-animal version.

Yes, it was magical. I was suffused with a sense of the world being a good, kind, and loving place.

On the other hand, it was not so different from the State Fair version, when you come right down to it. And the bit they did on Scrubs pretty much nails it: in a faux-1950's Health Class filmstrip, JD-as-wise doctor guy intones "you'll fart, pee, and poop in a room full of people." A-yup. There was in fact a lil' bit of that.

So I have to revise my rule about when you smell the poopoo in the trauma room. If it's a trauma patient who has lost bowel control, then yes, that is still a dire neurological finding, and a sign things are Very Bad Indeed. However, the mere fact of a "code brown" does not mean badness; there's a loophole in the rule allowing for childbirth-related dropping of the deuce.

Still a miracle, though. Tiny fingers and toes, etc. Yes yes. I'm not totally jaded.

1 comment:

dizulli said...

Heyyyy. Not everyone does all those things during childbirth! Some of us are very aware of that sort of thing and take care of as much as possible at the first sign. No gassy foods to begin with and hit the bathroom at every urge and opportunity before crunch time. 3 kids and no public pooping, thank you very much. (I'd have been mortified!)