Can You Hear My Heart Beat?

I did the anesthesia for a Cesarean section this week. The baby was delivered, and the pediatrician took the little girl over to the warmer to examine her, and clean her off. Meanwhile, the patient started to nap. I could hear her heart beating a steady 60 or so beats a minute via the monitors . . . BLEEP . . . BLEEP . . . BLEEP . . . BLEEP. I turned away to do some charting. While engaged in my charting, I heard the monitors change their tune from BLEEP . . . BLEEP . . . BLEEP . . . BLEEP to BLEEPBLEEPBLEEPBLEEPBLEEP in the high 90s. I quickly turned back to my patient while my right hand reached for rescue meds. What I saw stopped me in my tracks: mom with a huge smile on her face, and the pediatrician, now bringing the baby over to mom for the first time.

The moral of the story: Always look at your patient before treating the vital signs. Oh, and babies make our hearts sing!