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I chose this because we learned about the respiratory system this semester. Few weeks into the new semester I became a new dad. My daughter was born 39 weeks to the day. She was technically full term but she had a slight problem keeping her oxygen levels normal. She wasn’t getting enough oxygen to her brain and it wasn’t developing properly. Since her brain wasn’t getting enough oxygen she would forget to breathe. The doctors did a chest x-ray showing her left lung was slightly under developed, they said it could fix itself or they might have to check her into the NICU and monitor it for a couple days. Well it took 2 weeks.
For Curt’s STEAM project, he did his project on Neonatal Respiratory Disease Syndrome. The objective it covers is “analyze the effects of disease on function and structure of the respiratory system.†He talks about how full-term babies can come out fine without complications, and then later find out that they have underdeveloped lungs. You can see in his picture what a healthy neonatal lung looks like, and an undeveloped lung looks like. He also mentions that normal babies’ oxygen levels are 95-100%, whereas when his daughter was born, they were at 89-91%. In other words, babies with Neonatal Respiratory Disease Syndrome, their brains aren’t getting enough oxygen. One of the treatments includes giving small doses of caffeine mixed in with babies’ milk. This helps stimulate the baby’s brain and helps to regulate their breathing.