Allison's Story
Feb. 13, 2006 — -- In small plastic incubators, human life -- born unready -- struggles to thrive.
These premature babies may be tiny, but they are entirely recognizable -- with tiny hands and toes, tiny little yawns, tiny little eyes that open and look around.
But for these babies, their hold on life is fragile, because they are still so unready.
They're alive only because science battled back against nature, which is the daily struggle of the doctors and nurses who work in the neonatal intensive care unit at Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital of New York-Presbyterian in New York.
For 10 days last month, the "Nightline" team visited the hospital and documented families' experiences and the doctors' efforts to save their babies' lives as they explored the ethical questions raised and the decisions made.
One of those tiny babies is Allison Lucca Susana, born weighing just under 2 pounds and now just a few weeks old.
Her story has been one of ups and downs, for both her and her parents.
Allison's mother, Miriam, is 25 years old and has diabetes and other health problems. Doctors had told Miriam and her husband, Pedro, that she might not ever be able to become pregnant.
She beat the odds, although it hasn't been easy. At six months along, Miriam's body began fighting the pregnancy -- her blood pressure shot up so high it threatened her and the baby.
So Allison was delivered in an emergency Caesarean section and was taken straight to the neonatal intensive care unit, which got oxygen moving into her still underdeveloped lungs, food into her body and kept her warm, creating, in a sense, an artificial womb.
"When you're pregnant you read all the books, what to expect when you're expecting," Miriam said. "Nobody ever told me about premature babies and all the things they go through. So much is going on, you have no idea."
And in the early days of Allison's stay here, Miriam had no idea that her daughter still had a life-or-death struggle in front of her. But then, who ever thinks of newborns in life and death terms except for the nurses and doctors who deal with that every day?
