Babies are born on international flights – and it’s women at the centre of these “mid-air dramas”. Congratulations to the proud new mum as reported by The Sun:
A pregnant woman gave birth mid-flight on a local Myanmar KBZ flight from Tachileik to Yangon on Thursday (August 24).
The incident occurred 20 minutes after takeoff from Tachileik and despite the absence of medical aid or a doctor, fellow passengers successfully helped the mother in delivering a baby girl, a witness said.
The mother and newborn were later sent back to Tachileik for medical attention and were reported to be in good health.
Another case happened earlier this year as reported by Business Insider:
An Emirates passenger gave birth midway through a 12-hour overnight flight from Tokyo to Dubai.
The passenger was assisted by cabin crew on board the flight, which landed on time despite the emergency, an Emirates spokesperson told Insider. The plane landed in Dubai at 5.44 am local time, per local reports.
A spokesperson for Emirates said that: “The passenger and baby were in stable condition and, upon arrival in Dubai, were met by local medical staff. The health and safety of our crew and passengers is of paramount importance.”
This further insight reveals that they’d rather avoid these exciting developments if possible – they have planes to land safely and dinners to service, plus million-dollar smiles to deliver in first class.
“Pregnant travelers can book Emirates flights up to their 29th week of pregnancy, as long as they don’t have complications or medical concerns, according to Emirates travel health policy. Passengers that want to travel during or after the 29th week need to bring a medical certificate or a letter signed by a medical professional.”
Of course giving birth surrounded by professional flight crew, with the chance one or more of the passengers are doctors or midwives, is a pretty cool way to bring your baby into the world – and surprisingly safe.
But not every child is born in such a situation – nor are people’s dental and medical emergencies so well timed with help on hand.
Compared to giving birth, a dental emergency seems a long way down the medical priority list. But ask a dentist how they deal with an emergency situation and they’ll sometimes betray the panic and anxiety of everything from smashed up jaws to a multitude of teeth knocked out, rushed in cups of milk, fragmented and with a socialite crying hysterically at her loss of visual status.
Robots have been used in general dentistry for some time. In China, according to the South China Post, a robot performed a dental implant surgery independently without help from dentists. The robot was created by a joint venture between Stomatology Hospital and Beihang University. This robot without any assistance from dental practitioners, fitted two artificial teeth into the mouth of a patient with a margin error of 0.2-0.3mm. The artificial teeth were also created through 3D printing, hence making the whole process completely digital.
Although the technicians did a practice run of the robot’s movements to calculate the depth and angles required to fit the artificial teeth, the whole process which took an hour did not need any dentists at all.
The successful procedure raised hopes technology could avoid problems caused by human error and help overcome China’s shortage of qualified dentists – which only gets worse as Australia continues to import Chinese dentists at a remarkable rate.
But emergency dentistry? This is where humans’ flexibility and dexterity is still the defining feature, despite the incredible advances in dental technology.
Advancements in biotechnology and nanotechnology are dentistry and orthodontic’s fastest pathways to future innovation at the present time – and there may yet be scope for emergency applications as sometimes the tiniest innovation has the biggest, most universal consequences.
Nanotechnology deals with materials on a nanometer scale, which is a thousand times smaller than the micrometer scale. This is comparable in size to biomolecules and biomaterials, rather than to the plant and animal cells or viruses with which biotechnology works. The difference between a biomaterial and a nanomaterial is that even though biomolecules are engineered for various purposes, they are not considered nanomaterials because they are not (hu)manmade.
Many factors have driven the successful growth of Emergency Medicine: the rise of hospital medicine; medical advances; improved transport; specialisation of workforce; effective emergency treatments; efficiency and safety; and evidence-based medicine. Emergency medicine is now practiced in greater than 50 countries using many different models. Where this specialty has strong representation, outcomes improve for many illnesses: cardiac arrest; stroke; early analgesia; geriatric care; substance use treatment; psychiatric emergency care; and overall system efficiency.
As Peter Cameron asserts, “EM is a specialty for the 21st century” because of its strengths in systems thinking and evidence-based medicine.
For more on Emergency Medicine click here.