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CHARLES FOX / Staff Photographer
A family portrait shows mother Janaya Moscony and father John Lukan holding Makoa John Lukan-Mosconyfor the first time, on Feb. 11, nine days after Makoa was born. Today, he is healthy and weighs nearly 11 pounds.
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Delivery unit at Children's Hospital saves newborns' lives

John, glad he had watched the Super Bowl at home that night instead of going to a party, was waiting in the CHOP parking garage when they got there.

A nurse escorted them to Room 7 in the Garbose Family Special Delivery Unit - the SDU.

It was a few minutes after midnight on Feb. 2.

 

A soft cry

Four-and-a-half hours into her labor, Janaya asked for an epidural.

She'd been able to endure the pain, so far. But she wasn't so sure about the next contraction. She was afraid she wouldn't be able to handle what was coming, couldn't control it.

It was 3:30 a.m.

Five hours later, she was at 8 centimeters. The nurse called down to the neonatal intensive-care unit - the NICU - to alert the team of neonatologists, surgeons, nurses, and respiratory therapists.

The team began to assemble in the starfish room, the nickname for the infant-stabilization room next door to where Janaya lay.

At 10:30 a.m., she was fully dilated.

Time to push, the midwife told her. Next door a warmer was prepped for the newborn.

Every few minutes, a member of the NICU team glanced through a window into the delivery room, checking on the progress of baby and mother.

The delivery was easy, for a first child. Janaya felt as if she pushed just once and then heard Makoa John Lukan-Moscony announce his arrival with a soft cry.

It was 10:49 a.m. The quicker the treatment began, the better the chance to limit infection or further damage to the intestines.

Janaya was exhausted. She cast a fleeting look at her baby before the midwife passed him through the window and gently placed him on the waiting scale in the starfish room.

Makoa - which means fearless in Hawaiian - weighed in at 4 pounds, 12 ounces.

John distracted himself by snapping away with his digital camera.

He'd been prepared by the doctors and had seen pictures of babies with gastroschisis on the Internet. Still, he was amazed at the sight of his son. The huge, purplish mass of plump sausagelike intestines looked impossibly large for such a tiny baby.

A nurse quickly lifted Makoa off the scale and moved him into the waiting warmer.

 

Starfish

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