The Houston Chronicle ran a nice story about a shrimp boat captain who had to deliver a baby onboard while 30 miles offshore. Though she wasn't due until September, Cindy Preisel's water broke Wednesday. What was a shimp boat captain to do? Some highlights from the article:
[The mother] showed off the piece of green shrimp net twine boat captain Edward Kiesel used to tie off [the baby's] umbilical cord .
The baby's first bottle was an emptied and boiled soy sauce bottle with a nipple made from the finger of a rubber shrimper's glove. He was swaddled in paper and cloth towels.
The baby is now known around the Freeport waterfront as "the big shrimp".
Photo of a shrimp courtesy of Kona black water diver Matthew D'Avella.
More like this
Consumption of seafood in the U.S.
And speaking of shrimp, Steven Levitt over at the New York Times blog Freakonomics has a great post analyzing different responses to his question:
Shrimp is my favorite food; I really like shrimp.
There are no more resourceful people than those that work on ships for a living. Being a marine biologist, I go to sea more a month at a time and swear on Neptune's grave that I brought everything I need plus spares. But it always turn out I miss something, or lack a special tool needed to modify a piece of equipment. My buttocks (and thesis research!) have been saved numerous times by bosons, engineers and other ships crew. Thank Neptune for practical experience!
First bottle??? Is that a joke? Why would a newborn with its mother (food source) right there need a bottle? And what would they feed it from this "bottle"? Not much for a baby on a shrimping boat.
Look at how the natural act of birth is treated by our medical professionnals for a majorly shifting baseline. That and the quality of "news" reporting ;)
Mark, I couldn't agree more. But maybe the mother had to get back to pulling in the nets...or maybe the baby was sea sick.