Breathe, Baby, Breathe!
Neonatal Intensive Care, Prematurity, and Complicated Pregnancies
- Publisher
- University of Toronto Press
- Initial publish date
- Jan 2020
- Category
- Pediatric Emergencies, Perinatology & Neonatology, Personal Memoirs, Physician & Patient
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9781487504014
- Publish Date
- Jan 2020
- List Price
- $88.00
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781487523060
- Publish Date
- Jan 2020
- List Price
- $38.95
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781487519278
- Publish Date
- Nov 2019
- List Price
- $40.95
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Description
Every year in the United States, 12 per cent of all births are preterm births, 5 per cent of all babies need help to breathe at birth, and 3 per cent of neonates are born with at least one severe malformation. Many of these babies are hospitalized in a neonatal intensive care unit. Annie Janvier and her husband, Keith Barrington, are both pediatricians who specialize in the care of these sick babies and are internationally known for their research in this area. In 2005, when their daughter Violette was born extremely prematurely, four months before her due date, they faced the situation "from the other side" as parents. Despite knowing the scientific facts, they knew nothing about the experience itself. "Knowing how a respirator works did not help me be the mother of a baby on a respirator," writes Annie. She did not know how to navigate the guilt, the uncertainty, the fears, the predictions of providers, and the responses of friends and family. In a society obsessed with goals, performance, efficiency, and high percentages, she discovered that the daily lack of control that new parents of sick babies face changes their lives. And that, for physician parents, it also changes the way they practice medicine.
Most of the articles and books written about premature babies and neonatal intensive care units examine the technological and medical aspects of neonatology. Breathe, Baby, Breathe!, however, is written in the voice of a parent-doctor and tells the story of Violette and her parents, alongside the stories of other fragile babies and their families with different journeys and different outcomes. With the story of Violette at the core of the book, the interwoven stories and empirical articles provide essential insights into the medical world of premature birth. This original and clever blend of narrative and evidence provides a new, experiential view of the way forward during a parental crisis.
About the authors
Annie Janvier is a professor of Paediatrics and Clinical Ethics at the University of Montreal, and a Neonatologist, clinical ethicist and researcher at CHU Sainte-Justine.
Phyllis Aronoff, a Montrealer born and bred, translates from French to English, solo or with co-translator Howard Scott. She has translated fiction, poetry, memoirs, and works in the humanities by authors from Québec and France. Among her recent translations are Message Sticks / Tshissinuatshitakana, poems by Innu writer Joséphine Bacon, and novels (co-translated with Howard Scott) by Rima Elkouri and Edem Awumey. Her translations have won several prizes, including the Jewish Book Award for Fiction and, with Howard Scott, the Quebec Writers’ Federation Translation Prize and the Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation. Phyllis is a past president of the Literary Translators’ Association of Canada and has represented translators on the Public Lending Right Commission of Canada.
Phyllis Aronoff's profile page
Howard Scott is a Montreal literary translator who works with fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. His translations include works by Madeleine Gagnon, science-fiction writer Élisabeth Vonarburg, and Canada’s Poet Laureate, Michel Pleau. Scott received the Governor General’s Literary Award for his translation of Louky Bersianik’s The Euguelion. The Great Peace of Montreal of 1701, by Gilles Havard, which he co-translated with Phyllis Aronoff, won the Quebec Writers’ Federation Translation Award. A Slight Case of Fatigue, by Stéphane Bourguignon, another co-translation with Phyllis Aronoff, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award. Howard Scott is a past president of the Literary Translators’ Association of Canada.
