Beach Babies

The first thing that Sandie told me when I got to the hospital today was that Capucine had lost 70 grams and Gaston had lost 60 grams overnight. That, by all accounts, is nothing unusual with new born babies. However I started to get a bit suspicious about the French health system when I went to see them for myself. I was shocked to see Capucine under a blue UV lamp wearing an eye mask. I knew the French were vain, but surely putting them on a diet and encouraging sunbathing at less than 48 hours old was going a touch too far. Thankfully there was a nurse on hand to explain to me that this was actually a very common treatment for jaundice. The babies’ livers are working overtime to get rid of a few too many red blood cells. I heaved a sigh of relief. I spent most of the afternoon in ICU with a copy of the Economist and my iPod (they’re nice kids but not very talkative for the minute, especially when they’re topping up their sun tans). In general Gaston seems un-phased by the whole thing whereas Capucine is definitely more agitated. Thankfully by the end of the day Sandie and I were reassured because they were both sleeping peacefully. The next big event will be a brain scan for the pair of them on Tuesday. This will be particularly important to understand what’s going on for Capucine who had the more troubled birth of the two.

The other thing that the last 24 hours has taught me is the premium that the right information should command. Having only a small amount of information and a large amount of time to think is a dangerous combination. However providing a huge deluge of information is definitely not the answer either. Sandie managed to read the medical charts of the babies and saw Capucine’s poor Apgar scores...she then proceeded to fret about them and was only finally reassured after managing to get on the internet and finding out that a poor Apga score is thankfully not any indication of future (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apgar_score). It’s already quite clear that it’s going to be a rollercoaster ride for the next two months. With a bit of luck we’ll manage to keep a bit of perspective along the way and even more so, that the whole story will have a happy ending.