The Baby in the Womb

CrimsonNan

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http://barnhardt.biz/

Don't know if y'all would be interested in most of this post but please scroll down to the baby in the womb part. You have to scroll down pretty far to see it.


Part of the article:

Posted by Ann Barnhardt - March 16, AD 2012 3:01 PM MST
As received via email:

A picture began circulating in November. It should be 'The Picture of the Year,' or perhaps, 'Picture of the Decade.' It won't be. In fact, unless you obtained a copy of the US paper which published it, you probably would never have seen it.
The picture is that of a 21-week-old unborn baby named Samuel Alexander Armas, who is being operated on by surgeon named Joseph Bruner.

The baby was diagnosed with spina bifida and would not survive if removed from his mother's womb. Little Samuel's mother, Julie Armas, is an obstetrics nurse in Atlanta. She knew of Dr. Bruner's remarkable surgical procedure. Practicing at Vanderbilt Univ Med Ctr in Nashville, he performs these special operations while the baby is still in the womb.

During the procedure, the doctor removes the uterus via C-section and makes a small incision to operate on the baby. ***As Dr Bruner completed the surgery on Samuel, the little guy reached his tiny, but fully developed hand through the incision and firmly grasped the surgeon's finger. Dr Bruner was reported as saying that when his finger was grasped, it was the most emotional moment of his life, and that for an instant during the procedure he was just frozen, totally immobile.
 
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Catfish

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Oct 11, 2005
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That's a great photo, but what actually happened may have been misinterpreted/embelished.

Surgeon Joseph Bruner: "Depending on your political point of view, this is either Samuel Armas reaching out of the uterus and touching the finger of a fellow human, or it's me pulling his hand out of the uterus ... which is what I did." (Quoted in The Tennessean, Jan. 9, 2000)
Perhaps it all boils down to semantics. Dr. Bruner has stated elsewhere that Samuel's hand "appeared" in the uterine opening before he reached out and lifted it, lending credence to photographer Clancy's version of events. In any case, although it appears the email does exaggerate when it says the fetus "reached ... through the incision and firmly grasped the surgeon's finger," something akin to that really did happen.
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl-handofhope3.htm

http://www.snopes.com/photos/medical/thehand.asp
 

SavannahDare

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Jul 23, 2004
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It's the palmar grasp reflex, a reflex evident in all fetuses and neonates. Touch or press on the palm and the hand reflexively closes tightly. There's no higher brain function involved. In fact, it's a primitive reflex that reappears in many people with brain damage (after it has gone extinct around six months of age).

Nothing to see here other than how wonderful it is that more and more procedures are saving and enhancing the lives of fetuses and babies, respectively.
 

SimplyTide

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Oct 7, 2011
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Hmmm, dead baby jokes - they don't really get funny until you get to the third or fourth one in sequence.