Re: MOther Survives, But Baby Dies ...
From: Efrain Ramirez (eramirezt@coqui.net)
Fri Jun 9 19:18:49 2006
I am confused - nowhere in the article the word stillborn is mentioned -
??
Ef
> At Fri, 9 Jun 2006, Dean Huffman . wrote:
>
>..
>
>Operation Saves Mother, but Baby Elephant Is Stillborn
>
>She had been in labor since Sunday, but the contractions remained weak. So on
>Wednesday night, experts from Missouri and Florida flew to Syracuse to assist
>in a rare emergency surgery on the 29-year-old patient — an Asian elephant
>named Romani.
>
>Romani the elephant with members of the medical team that performed the
>operation that saved her life, from left, Noha Abou-madi, Beth Bunting, Susie
>Bartlett, Rolfe Radcliffe and Dr. George Kollias.
>Employees at the Rosamond Gifford Zoo had worked into the night to transform an
>elephant barn into an operating room for the surgical procedure, known as a
>vestibulotomy, to widen the birth canal.
>
>An eight-member team gathered on Thursday morning to perform the procedure,
>similar in concept to an episiotomy in human births but much rarer — with only
>an estimated seven previously performed in the world, a zoo spokeswoman said.
>
>Reporters camped outside during the four-hour operation. Volunteers brought
>changes of clothing and food for the team. Dozens of people sent e-mail
>messages to the zoo or called with concern. "She's a huge asset to the zoo,"
>Sarah Fedele, a zoo spokeswoman, said of Romani.
>
>But the veterinarians discovered that the legs of the 330-pound calf were
>splayed inside the birth canal, causing it to become stuck. The calf, a female,
>had died.
>
>The team had to push the calf back into the uterus to reposition it, and then
>pull it back through the canal, said the lead veterinarian, Dr. Dennis Schmitt,
>a professor of veterinary medicine from Missouri State University. Other members
>of the surgical team came from Cornell University in Ithaca, and Disney's Animal
>Kingdom in Orlando, Fla.
>
>After the surgery, they were cautiously hopeful about Romani. "She's doing very
>well," Dr. Schmitt said.
>
>Romani, who weights 8,200 pounds, has given birth to other calves while in
>captivity at the zoo — a male, Tundi, in 1991, and two females, Kirina, in
>1995, and Preya in 2002. In the previous births, Romani required some minor
>assistance. "She doesn't like the pain," Ms. Fedele said. "Not that I can blame
>her."
>
>In those deliveries, veterinarians kept labor moving with massages and
>injections of Oxytocin to help stimulate contractions. Those techniques did not
>work this time, but veterinarians were unable to determine why. "In elephants,
>there are a lot of unknowns in the birthing process," Dr. Schmitt said.
>
>After the surgery on Thursday, the team walked Romani around. Her vital signs
>looked good, so they took her to see her daughter Kirina, said the zoo
>director, Chuck Doyle, who has worked with Romani for 21 years.
>
>"They bonded a little," he said. "They were definitely glad to see each other."
>
>NY Times
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/09/nyregion/09elephant.html
--
“ The greatest obstacle to knowledge is not ignorance,
it is the illusion of knowledge.” Daniel J. Boorstin - Historian
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