TECHNOLOGY SAVING BABIES, MONEY

Shelly Huckstep was six months pregnant when she attended German Day 1993 in Chaffee. Despite the celebration around her, she felt something wasn't right and went home to lie down.

She began having contractions.

Huckstep went to Southeast Missouri Hospital, spending three days there while doctors tried to keep her from having her baby. She went home, only to return for another five-day stay.

New computer technology helped keep Huckstep from delivering the baby too early or from having more expensive hospital stays. The hospital, in conjunction with I.V. Care, sent her home with a fetal monitoring unit.

For the rest of her pregnancy, she put two monitors on her belly a few times each day. One picked up the baby's heartbeat and the other kept count of contractions.

The information went over phone lines to a computer at Southeast, where a nurse interpreted the information. She could tell how the baby was doing and whether or not Huckstep needed more medication. The nurse called her back with the monitoring results.

Huckstep was the first patient to use the system, and just three weeks short of a normal 40-week pregnancy, Huckstep delivered a healthy baby girl.

"Those nurses and I.V. Care will never realize how much they did for my family," Huckstep said. "They even came to Madison's first birthday party."

Prenatal technology, along with careful monitoring of babies after they are born, is resulting in many more happy first birthdays for area children.

Joie Henley, a nurse manager with Southeast's inpatient neonatal services department, said the new technology not only saves lives but also saves medical costs for patients, insurance companies and Medicaid. Often babies born prematurely rack up huge bills because they have to stay in the hospital for so long.

But some babies' problems defy technology. They may be born full term and seem all right. Henley and LaDonna Wills, another nurse manager, remembered a September article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about a baby girl born in Deaconness Hospital. The mother was sent home after Medicaid's two-day limit, even though she sensed something was wrong.

The baby died in surgery five days later.

"I don't think it was a bad hospital, it probably was just a bad situation," Henley said. "I guess no one is absolutely safe."

However, Southeast nurses assess babies in the nursery every eight hours before they send them home. Those with major problems are sent to St. Louis medical facilities, while others can be treated in the hospital's special care nursery.

All mothers with babies in the special nursery are taught CPR and other skills they may need when they take their children home. Nurses often phone them the day they are discharged.

"They have our phone numbers and are strongly encouraged to call us," Wills said. "We tell them that no question is too small to ask. Sometimes we tell them to bring the baby back as an outpatient. Even though they go home, we haven't let them go."