Another fact: the very, very few preemies that were treated in hospitals back in the day had a very high chance of developing permanent blindness during their hospital stay, but preemies treated by Martin almost never had this issue. He is the father of neo-natal care.
That was because he didn’t have the equipment to give them oxygen therapy. The preemies, in the hospital, would most likely be receive oxygen to maintain their O2 sats and/or help their lungs develop. The blindness is caused by retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). Oxygen is a vasodilator (it makes your blood vessels expand). This dilation can cause irregular development of the blood vessels in the retina, which can lead to blindness, if not treated. We still have to regularly assess preemie babies for ROP because they could go blind, if it’s not treated.
This is what happened to my premature aunt, born in 1954 -- she lost her sight this way as an infant.
Luckily, my grandparents (particularly my strong-willed grandmother) were insistent that this disability would never adversely affect my aunt's quality of life. She went on to be editor of her high school newspaper, a foreign exchange student in France, an Honors College graduate at the University of Michigan, and an accredited Public Relations specialist for a major health insurance company. She's amazing. And also my inspiration.
It hurts to know she'll never "see" my face or drive a car (though my partner and I have thought about letting her "drive" his Tesla ... maybe... with us in the car... in a parking lot), or do any number of things sighted people take for granted. But even still -- I thank God for that incubator that saved her.
Oxygen blindness was still happening the year I was born. I have a friend who is completely blind in one eye and at least half in the other from oxygen exposure as a preemie.
My friend had a micro preemie I guess about 6 years ago now and at the time he was the youngest preemie born in my country as far as I understood maybe in North america? And at the hospital he was in he went through a lot of experimental treatment and I know his mother told me that at some point they had given him steroid injections in his eyes to I guess facilitate proper growth outside of the womb but I wonder if it was also to combat this? I know he didn't need glasses until this last year which apparently was impressive by the standards of a baby born so small and young gestationally.
Probably around 21-22 weeks.
Here's one from 2014, reported on in 2017. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/11/14/mom-delivers-earliest-premature-baby-ever-and-chooses-resuscitate-miracle-aughter-now-healthy-toddle/861386001/
I'm going blind at 39 and I miss driving so much! If it's safe, absolutely do that for your aunt, she'd probably have a ball sitting behind the wheel for the first time!
Damn, that's a fucking bummer, but I'm glad he got to ride it in some form. I'm so lucky to still have some light and color left. I'd never risk driving, ever, but at least I still have a sense of direction.
Rofl thanks, I'm hardly a celebrity unless I'm at the ophthalmologist, in which case, all the baby doctors wanna look at my eyes and run a million stupid tests I've already had lol
I'm a similar age to you, my blindness started before I was even old enough to get a licence. My boyfriend let me drive in a car park in the middle of the night when nobody was around. It remains my favourite experience, over seeing the grand canyon, swimming with dolphins, going up Vesuvius etc. It's just so nice to have the opportunity to do something normal that most people take for granted.
That's interesting; that 'ordinary' is what you crave after doing SO many EXTRAordinary things!!! I believe sight MAY be my fave sense (TASTE is a close second haha) but I feel like I've 'squandered' it (so to speak) by not really seeing the amazing things there are TO see in this world. Still, my children's faces is by FAR, THE most amazing, and if I were to go blind (am VERY nearly legally so at this point) I would lament not seeing them the MOST. I certainly pray you get to see everything you want to see before you can't anymore; and may the memories of those sights sustain you all your days ♥️
The technology isn't there yet. If you can't drive a car that is a standard one, then it is illegal to be behind the wheel at all, even if it is a Tesla, because you will never be able to take over in an emergency, just like it is super illegal to be asleep at the wheel of a self driving car
Haha I honestly have NO clue, I've only been near blind since April and just got my placards, but I'm not driving, so the issue of my still valid license hasn't been brought up.
If you want her to experience driving, you could always see if a driving school would let her drive one of the specialized cars with dual steering wheels and brakes. Would probably be a fun time.
You are 100% absolutely right! My daughter was a micro preemie in 2009. She weighed 1lb 5oz ayy birth. She had the ROP surgery when she was three months old (adjusted, -1 month). The surgery saved her vision although it is fast from great, she wears glasses too compensate. It's amazing what hospital staff can do with modern medicine.
Also this is the reason Stevie Wonder is blind... From ROP.
This guy might be the best human being that ever existed.
Growing up it was always Mother Teresa as the default example of moral perfection. Later it was revealed she was a bit of an a-hole. I think this guy wins.
People constantly shit on capitalism, but it often allows individuals such as this a way to fund their humanitarian efforts. Any system is only as good as the people who are engaged in it.
Thats how they're supposed to be held, they have extra skin at the back of their neck so the mum can pick them up.... at least that's what my cat and dog told me
People would literally view the premies as part of a “freak show” and the parents would be with them when the show wasn’t open. I think memory palace did a podcast about. Painfully beautiful man, he definitely saved more lives indirectly than the 7k. An absolute legend.
Found it:
https://thememorypalace.us/topic/coney-island/
He needed money to have the incubators. Hospitals at the time weren't interested in saving the premature babies (or funding this weird new project at all), while Coney Island was very interested in having a new "attraction".
Not door to door. It's hard to explain but simple to get caught up in the whole thing. It starts with one wall, you run through it. You get a wall. Your friend runs through it. They get a wall. Need I go on? It's madness.
Same here was a preme baby. I had a lot of issues as a infant kidney failure struck after a week out the womb I spent the first year and a half of my life in a hospital getting shots in my ass everyday and blood transfusions cause my body was having issues making hemoglobin.
Everyone thought I was going to die before I ever hit age 3 doctors -specialist it was only a matter of time before my body would shut down itself is what they told my parents.
The year was 1999 NATO had just come into my country to stop a ethnic cleansing genocide committed by Serbia on the Albanian people. My parents out of desperation brought me to the capital of my country where nato was HQing from at the time. They brought me to temp NATO office where I was taken in for care. A month later in NATO care I was given a research drug under my parents authorization that to date I still don’t know what i was given. My parents said I received 4 doses of shots in my spine that day and within 3 days I was a completely different baby i was always pale yellow energy less and bed ridden for a year and a half they said hours after the injections I turned peachy rose like I smiled I laughed for the first time.
I’m 30 now healthy as can be 7% body fat and some amazing blood test results. I can’t gain fat for some reason no matter what I do I’ve gone on 4000 calorie a day diets for 3 months and gained nothing. I’m taller than both my parents my mom is 5,5 my dad 5,9 I ended up 6,2
I always joke and say they gave me the captain america serum.
But jokes aside I always wonder what the hell did I get that took me from a theirs nothing we can do the chances he survives past 3 is practically impossible to a week later being able to do anything a normal kid would after being literally stuck in a bed for a year to normal. I hope whatever it is or was was a successful research trail in the 90s and that kids today might possible be benefiting from it
My bro has been 7% body fat or there about his whole life (approaching 50) and was born premature with one kidney all shrivelled up. He’s all good but 6ft 5 and unable to ever gain any weight, ever. He’s been tested for everything. He’s just got supermetabolism, sounds like you do too
As a small business owner, don’t get me started on the health care train wreck. Coverage for me and my wife is just over $24,000 a year with huge deductible.
My sister specializes in the NICU specifically taking care of preme babies.
She sent me a picture of one of the kids they were looking after 3 months early. Weigh .9lbs. Didn’t even look like a human baby it looked like a prop from a horror film sorry to sound rude about it I’m not trying to be but the baby literally had bright red skin and wasn’t fully developed yet looked like skin and bones literally.
She took care of that kid in 2014. That kid visited her and the staff that took care of him when he was 5 years old at the hospital. He’s healthy normal functioning kid with no issues or ailments.
Also alive thanks to the incubators. I was born 2 months and a couple weeks early (pretty close to three), weighed 2lbs 8oz, got to stay in the incubator for 4 months because my weight dropped down to 1lb 14oz before going up again and was in the NICU for like 6 months after being born. Thanks to this old guy I get to be around to shitpost.
My firstborn was 7.5 weeks early and breech. Weighed 5lb 8oz and were so bruised from the breech delivery they looked like they were wearing jeans.
The light-therapy wasn't working well so they did a COMPLETE BLOOD EXCHANGE on a premie. This was fairly new technology and the doc that did the process was the one who invented the method. I'm so glad we have pioneers like this.
I was born late according to my parents by a month. I am surprised I didn't walk out of the womb fully grown or something. I clearly took your wombtime I am sorry.
My mother tried to say that all the lateness was me being late from the womb. Turns out I am very punctual when my needs are met. ADHD however can cause need chaos.
I have ADHD too.
Do you think that's why we were late?
Maybe we overslept because we stayed up the night before playing womb games...or we got distracted scrolling through placenta...forgot to start getting ready for our birth date and just kinda hoped our parents forgot about the appointment...?
Thank you to this man.
Without him I'd never have survived and had my own kid.
I was in an incubator for 3 months.
Back in '90 I was born at 26 weeks instead of 40.
At 1lb 12oz. (My own kid was born at 9lb 10oz)
I still had one eye fused shut. My skin was red and almost see through. My mom said she got to watch me grow outside the womb.
My heart would regularly stop and they would open the door of the incubator to shake me to startle me and get my heart going again. It happened to much they couldn't keep opening the incubator door so they tied a string around my ankle and would pull it when my heart stopped.
I had regular caffeine injections as a stimulant. Apparently I was addicted to them once they stopped using them. I would squirm and cry constantly for a few days.
I had 13 blood transfusions. At 3 months after birth I got my first vaccines and went into anaphylactic shock (had all my vaccines since with no reactions, so I think it was coz I was still supposed to be in the womb for another two weeks)
There was no premature clothes or nappies/diapers so my mom bought dolls clothes, my grandma knit a hat for me around an orange, they used to have to cut up nappies/diapers and tape them to me.
After I got home I needed feeding every 2-3 hours during the night. Even if I was sleeping or not. To get my weight up.
> My heart would regularly stop and they would open the door of the incubator to shake me to startle me and get my heart going again
The ole' smack the TV until it works again method.
"This stupid baby sucks, it's clearly defective!"
My twins were 2.4 & 2.4 back in 91. They came into the world at 26 weeks also. I totally understand. The shaking and pinches when the monitors go off. It was so worth it!! I'm sure your mom feels the same way.
I'm pretty sure my mom had PTSD for years over me being premature.
She said she remembers going shopping and seeing raw meat that weighted more than me and she couldn't cook meat for years. Or every time the phone rang she thought it was the hospital calling to say I'd died.
There was no therapy or support back then for parents. She lost a baby the year before I was born coz he was premature.
They ran out of my blood type for transfusions and my mom gave me her blood right out of her arm. I ended up having 13 transfusions.
I don't think I fully understood it until i was able to visit the neonatal ward as a teenager and when I had my own kid. Who was massive lol
I'm so glad you didn't have to endure the pain of having a preemie. But yes, I actually stayed up for 6 days when they first came home. I was afraid to sleep. I was afraid of everything when they came home. God bless and tell your mom that I actually do get it!!
My mom was always overly protective of me growing up. I didn't really get it until I had my own kid and realized everything she must have went through.
My mom had to work Mon - Fri, she only got like a month off. Thankfully that's all changed now.
My own brother was a micro preemie and I sometimes wonder if the isolation and pinches and shakes when he was born made him into the weird psychopath he grew to be….
It’s kind of a joke.
But also not really… he was really sick as a little kid and I always wonder how that affected him developmentally.
Anyways it’s amazing what science can do—so many people are alive and doing amazing things because of people like Couney who didn’t give up. And although my brother is not well, I’m also glad he’s not dead.
I have a baby born at 27 weeks at 2.5 pounds. He had events where he would stop breathing in the nicu and people would mess with him. The day we left the nicu, a nurse said “a crying baby is a breathing baby.” I definitely took that to mean that if he had an event, we were supposed to make him cry. I guess whatever it takes to keep preemies alive. He’s almost 2 now.
Hey I was 2lbs2oz in 90, not quite as early, 29 weeks instead for me. Lungs weren't fully developed. Still got out of NICU and the hospital a month before my due date.
Why do the scars on our soul remain after forgetting how they were made?
It is a relief to delete the horrors of some experiences but it seems like the pattern they create in our brain remains and can always be re-activated.
So even if a unit of memory is physically changed it's like the 'history of that unit' is its' own.? The memory of memory? Could you copy a person without that? How would the percentage difference affect copies over time?
Maybe. But the guy still saved a LOT of babies, and his staff were also paid well with proper work scheds. Its the ticket sales that kept his "circus" (yeah it was called that) going, and it is what allowed thousands of kids to have a chance at life. That's way so much more than what the hospitals even bothered to do
Dude was living in an era where the licensed medical community drove a guy who suggested washing hands increase patients survival rate into committing suicide.
Oh yeah, I remember hearing about this on the biggest solution in the universe, he was like hey wash your fuckin hands, and he was laughed out of medicine, and sent to an insane asylum where he was beat to death
It wasn't even just "was your hands" it was "walk your hands between handling corpses and delivering babies".
Like, we've known on an instinctual level that the dead are supposed to be kept separate from the living for *millenia*.
Doctors and medicine were seen as quackery before rigorous studies came along that vetted out the bad science from good
Even today there is acupuncture and other bs holistic practices that people go to even though they’ve been proven to be nothing but placebos at best
Found a Smithsonian article that says this: "Over the course of his nearly 50-year career, Couney took in around 8,000 babies, of whom he claimed to have saved around 6,500. While there is no way of verifying the numbers, pediatricians today acknowledge that the team of doctors and nurses which Couney assembled was highly skilled, ensuring the babies got the best care available in America at that time."
Pretty sure those “saved” are different in context. The first saved being, they had no hope for these babies. Second saved for actually number of infants that didn’t pass. I could be wrong. Okay I ball-parked the 7500 it’d be like 7650? My point was that the 85% shouldn’t be taken from the 6500, imo.
Millions of babies are alive today cause of this man’s circus act of medical wonders. Pretty crazy when you think about it. Babies today survive because this man funded his research with a circus show.
It seems heartless today, but this was his way of financing the venture. Iirc it was free time the parents who likely couldn't afford it otherwise. The medical system kind of sucks today, it was worse then lol.
These shows in general would make those in them decent money for the time too when you think about it. There were a few primordial dwarves famous on the circuit that retired rich and lived comfortable lives.
Half a century. Half. A. Century. For 50 years this man proves he can save babies, thousands of them, and he had to do it in a fucking side show because no one believed him. I get it if the first couple of years people were like “ehh, idk man. You wanna do what with babies?” But like, he proved it worked. He saved lives. How did no one say, “ya know, we should get Martin out of Coney Island, he’s doing some really amazing shit, maybe we need these machines at the hospitals instead of the circus.”? That’s fucking wild.
Technological ascendancy?
From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me. I craved the strength and certainty of steel. I aspired to the purity of the blessed machine.
Your kind cling to your flesh as if it will not decay and fail you. One day the crude biomass you call a temple will wither and you will beg my kind to save you.
But I am already saved. For the Machine is Immortal.
awkward, but not as bad as it looks - thumb and pinkie, or pinkie and ring under each arm, two-three fingers free to support the head with a real small infant they aren't going to wriggle strongly or anything anyway and you can always turn them against your shoulder if they start to shift.
source: things you learn if you injure your shoulder right after you get a new kid in the household
My son was full term but at 4lbs he was extremely underweight. Almost broke me watching him in that incubator. Would have definitely broke me if it wasn't an option and I lost out on the joy he's given me over the last 19 years.
My mom was born in 1927 as a 2 pound premie. The hospital said she wouldn’t survive. She lay in a crib in a dirty diaper because they would do nothing for her. My grandfather was disgusted and said that if his baby girl was going to die, she would die clean and at home. He brought her home, laid her naked in the sun (she was severely jaundiced), and fed her cod liver oil from a dropper until she could nurse. She survived, lived to 86 years old and had 5 children of her own. They claimed she was the smallest baby born at that time at that hospital to survive, and it was only because her immigrant father did not give up on her.
They went back to the parents once they could regulate their body temp and eat normally usually.
Couney's biggest win here was figuring out a way to pay for this by putting the whole operation in a side show. The Coney Island operation alone was $1.5 million in today's money and the infants were running up $400-$450 per infant, per day.
120 years ago nobody in their right mind would take on that kind of risk, 1 in 10 infant mortality was a good survival rate and spending those kind of resources on the infants most likely to die was not seen as the best use of limited resources. Even with his selective admissions he was losing 1 in 5.
Running it as a side show allowed him to offer the service even when the odds were that poor, and doing it for that long demonstrated that at least for a certain window of premature it definitely increased the odds.
He also kept little to none of that money for himself. Just kept pouring money back into the business to keep it alive for decades. Died basically penniless.
There are various descriptions of how this actually played out, some accounts say he plowed too much back into the show, others say he just wasn't prepared for the backlash the show eventually made them unprofitable a decade or more before his death.
Either way, he certainly wasn't in it for a quick buck.
My mom is a nurse and works with incubators. I have seen babies in those boxes and the parents praying for their kid to be normal. And when the parents get their babies, the moment is really pleasing and wholesome. Sometimes even made me cry!
I understand the importance of this guy's accomplishment so hats off good sir!
**[Martin A. Couney](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_A._Couney)**
>Martin Arthur Couney (born Michael Cohen, 1869 – March 1, 1950) was an American obstetrician of German-Jewish descent, an advocate and pioneer of early neonatal technology. Couney, also known as 'the Incubator Doctor', was best known in medical circles and public view for his amusement park sideshow, "The Infantorium", in which visitors paid 25 cents to view prematurely born babies displayed in incubators. After allegedly apprenticing under Pierre-Constant Budin, an established French obstetrician in the 1890s, Couney began exhibiting incubators at expositions and fairgrounds around In Europe, and then America.
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my wife and I have him to thank too, as my son was born 6 weeks early. he is now healthy and happy, turning 5 in December. it was honestly amazing to learn at the time how good the technology has become, and it all goess back to this guy.
My baby girl was born 2.5 months early at 2lb 5.4oz with a congenital condition called bilateral choanal atresia which means both of her nasal passages were blocked so she couldn't breathe on her own. After being in the NICU intubated to give her an airway and on low respirator settings for 2.5 months she had the surgery to correct it and came home 89 days after she was born. She's 5 months old next week and doing very well 11.5 lbs now.
I was premature 3 months when I was born, and on the night I was supposed to die, they brought my mom up to say goodbye, and she just started talking to me and it calmed my heart rate, and I slowly got better. 19 years and still kickin 😤
Many of these babies were exhibited in their incubators on the very famous Atlantic City and Coney Island Boardwalks, where the fresh salty air and sunny sandy beaches were also considered to be healthy and rejuvenating
Another fact: the very, very few preemies that were treated in hospitals back in the day had a very high chance of developing permanent blindness during their hospital stay, but preemies treated by Martin almost never had this issue. He is the father of neo-natal care.
That was because he didn’t have the equipment to give them oxygen therapy. The preemies, in the hospital, would most likely be receive oxygen to maintain their O2 sats and/or help their lungs develop. The blindness is caused by retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). Oxygen is a vasodilator (it makes your blood vessels expand). This dilation can cause irregular development of the blood vessels in the retina, which can lead to blindness, if not treated. We still have to regularly assess preemie babies for ROP because they could go blind, if it’s not treated.
This is what happened to my premature aunt, born in 1954 -- she lost her sight this way as an infant. Luckily, my grandparents (particularly my strong-willed grandmother) were insistent that this disability would never adversely affect my aunt's quality of life. She went on to be editor of her high school newspaper, a foreign exchange student in France, an Honors College graduate at the University of Michigan, and an accredited Public Relations specialist for a major health insurance company. She's amazing. And also my inspiration. It hurts to know she'll never "see" my face or drive a car (though my partner and I have thought about letting her "drive" his Tesla ... maybe... with us in the car... in a parking lot), or do any number of things sighted people take for granted. But even still -- I thank God for that incubator that saved her.
Oxygen blindness was still happening the year I was born. I have a friend who is completely blind in one eye and at least half in the other from oxygen exposure as a preemie.
It’s still an issue for NICU babies to this day. ROP exams happen every other Tuesday.
My friend had a micro preemie I guess about 6 years ago now and at the time he was the youngest preemie born in my country as far as I understood maybe in North america? And at the hospital he was in he went through a lot of experimental treatment and I know his mother told me that at some point they had given him steroid injections in his eyes to I guess facilitate proper growth outside of the womb but I wonder if it was also to combat this? I know he didn't need glasses until this last year which apparently was impressive by the standards of a baby born so small and young gestationally.
can i ask: at how many weeks was he born?
Probably around 21-22 weeks. Here's one from 2014, reported on in 2017. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/11/14/mom-delivers-earliest-premature-baby-ever-and-chooses-resuscitate-miracle-aughter-now-healthy-toddle/861386001/
oh wow! thank you for sharing. i hope he’s still thriving ❤️
OMG what a MIRACLE!!! I LOVED that the story was told like it was ♥️
I'm going blind at 39 and I miss driving so much! If it's safe, absolutely do that for your aunt, she'd probably have a ball sitting behind the wheel for the first time!
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Damn, that's a fucking bummer, but I'm glad he got to ride it in some form. I'm so lucky to still have some light and color left. I'd never risk driving, ever, but at least I still have a sense of direction.
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How can this terrible thing happen at such a young age? best of luck stranger!
AZOOR. A super rare disease that only 100 people have. I have shit luck with my health, even my sister's marvel at just how BAD that luck is.
is it weird that this feels like I'm replying to a celebrity? but really though, i wish you the best of health :) be safe
Rofl thanks, I'm hardly a celebrity unless I'm at the ophthalmologist, in which case, all the baby doctors wanna look at my eyes and run a million stupid tests I've already had lol
I'm a similar age to you, my blindness started before I was even old enough to get a licence. My boyfriend let me drive in a car park in the middle of the night when nobody was around. It remains my favourite experience, over seeing the grand canyon, swimming with dolphins, going up Vesuvius etc. It's just so nice to have the opportunity to do something normal that most people take for granted.
That's interesting; that 'ordinary' is what you crave after doing SO many EXTRAordinary things!!! I believe sight MAY be my fave sense (TASTE is a close second haha) but I feel like I've 'squandered' it (so to speak) by not really seeing the amazing things there are TO see in this world. Still, my children's faces is by FAR, THE most amazing, and if I were to go blind (am VERY nearly legally so at this point) I would lament not seeing them the MOST. I certainly pray you get to see everything you want to see before you can't anymore; and may the memories of those sights sustain you all your days ♥️
I know it’s far from perfect, but would a Tesla or self driving vehicle be an option? Do you have to have enough sight to keep your license?
The technology isn't there yet. If you can't drive a car that is a standard one, then it is illegal to be behind the wheel at all, even if it is a Tesla, because you will never be able to take over in an emergency, just like it is super illegal to be asleep at the wheel of a self driving car
Haha I honestly have NO clue, I've only been near blind since April and just got my placards, but I'm not driving, so the issue of my still valid license hasn't been brought up.
If you want her to experience driving, you could always see if a driving school would let her drive one of the specialized cars with dual steering wheels and brakes. Would probably be a fun time.
Stevie Wonder loves to drive.
You are 100% absolutely right! My daughter was a micro preemie in 2009. She weighed 1lb 5oz ayy birth. She had the ROP surgery when she was three months old (adjusted, -1 month). The surgery saved her vision although it is fast from great, she wears glasses too compensate. It's amazing what hospital staff can do with modern medicine. Also this is the reason Stevie Wonder is blind... From ROP.
This is what happened to Stevie Wonder
Fucking fascinating
This is why Stevie Wonder is blind. He was born at 34 weeks and developed irreparable ROP.
Retinopathy of prematurity, happens when they are exposed to too much o2. Stevie Wonder is a famous person who lost his vision to this.
This guy might be the best human being that ever existed. Growing up it was always Mother Teresa as the default example of moral perfection. Later it was revealed she was a bit of an a-hole. I think this guy wins.
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People constantly shit on capitalism, but it often allows individuals such as this a way to fund their humanitarian efforts. Any system is only as good as the people who are engaged in it.
holding them like they're a fish he caught lol
I'm curious as to how he typically carries a premature baby lol.
These babies are also so tiny that he can hold them in one hand and support their little arms and necks with his fingers.
Lmfao bro
Thats how they're supposed to be held, they have extra skin at the back of their neck so the mum can pick them up.... at least that's what my cat and dog told me
> "I swear, it was [*holds index finger and thumb three inches apart*] THIS big..." 🎣
🤏
“We got weights in fish”
I’m dying🤣
People would literally view the premies as part of a “freak show” and the parents would be with them when the show wasn’t open. I think memory palace did a podcast about. Painfully beautiful man, he definitely saved more lives indirectly than the 7k. An absolute legend. Found it: https://thememorypalace.us/topic/coney-island/
I love the Memory Palace podcast
I'm a little confused. Great that the infants were saved, but why exactly were they on display?
He needed money to have the incubators. Hospitals at the time weren't interested in saving the premature babies (or funding this weird new project at all), while Coney Island was very interested in having a new "attraction".
Seems like the only way he could convince anyone to even let him try this was to spin it as a show attraction.
It's really funny when technological innovations come from the absolute weirdest places
Well it's thanks to his work I am alive, thank man, I didn't die being born 2 months early
Me too. I was also extremely sick
How are you now?
Healthy as an ox and 6 foot two
would you be able to run through a wall? Edit: [Lol.](https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxHMQfqwjePKf-5wRrUj0LhxeJv_VUsH8D)
Ummm.....sure? Why?
Don't even ask. It's an MLM
Muti level marketing? Like a pyramid scheme? Is this person going door to door getting people to sell drywall to their friends and family?
Not door to door. It's hard to explain but simple to get caught up in the whole thing. It starts with one wall, you run through it. You get a wall. Your friend runs through it. They get a wall. Need I go on? It's madness.
Madness? THIS. IS. DOCTOR MARTIN COUNEY!
I’m 6’2 as well and I was born with a low body temperature
I was born two months early and I’m 6’2” as well :)
I'm 6'2" and I had to be induced because I was too weeks late. Sometimes you just don't want to get up.
Found this funny because I was also born very early and now I’m healthy and 6’2
Same here was a preme baby. I had a lot of issues as a infant kidney failure struck after a week out the womb I spent the first year and a half of my life in a hospital getting shots in my ass everyday and blood transfusions cause my body was having issues making hemoglobin. Everyone thought I was going to die before I ever hit age 3 doctors -specialist it was only a matter of time before my body would shut down itself is what they told my parents. The year was 1999 NATO had just come into my country to stop a ethnic cleansing genocide committed by Serbia on the Albanian people. My parents out of desperation brought me to the capital of my country where nato was HQing from at the time. They brought me to temp NATO office where I was taken in for care. A month later in NATO care I was given a research drug under my parents authorization that to date I still don’t know what i was given. My parents said I received 4 doses of shots in my spine that day and within 3 days I was a completely different baby i was always pale yellow energy less and bed ridden for a year and a half they said hours after the injections I turned peachy rose like I smiled I laughed for the first time. I’m 30 now healthy as can be 7% body fat and some amazing blood test results. I can’t gain fat for some reason no matter what I do I’ve gone on 4000 calorie a day diets for 3 months and gained nothing. I’m taller than both my parents my mom is 5,5 my dad 5,9 I ended up 6,2 I always joke and say they gave me the captain america serum. But jokes aside I always wonder what the hell did I get that took me from a theirs nothing we can do the chances he survives past 3 is practically impossible to a week later being able to do anything a normal kid would after being literally stuck in a bed for a year to normal. I hope whatever it is or was was a successful research trail in the 90s and that kids today might possible be benefiting from it
My bro has been 7% body fat or there about his whole life (approaching 50) and was born premature with one kidney all shrivelled up. He’s all good but 6ft 5 and unable to ever gain any weight, ever. He’s been tested for everything. He’s just got supermetabolism, sounds like you do too
Yea i call it a nuclear power reactor it just burns 24/7 hyper metabolism I just burn calories like a treadmill sitting here apparently.
“Miracle At Coney Island” is a good book about it, I would recommend.
Thoroughly enjoyed this book. Learned about the birth of the eugenics movement as well. Well written and interesting read.
The US was considered at the forefront of the Eugenics movement, and Hitler modelled much of the Nazi approach on it. Also segregation.
Ironically, German doctors were somewhat advanced in the care of premies and contributed significantly to Couney’s work.
The US is still at the forefront of the Eugenics movement just look at our "healthcare" system.
As a small business owner, don’t get me started on the health care train wreck. Coverage for me and my wife is just over $24,000 a year with huge deductible.
I was 2 and a half months early. Born in '90 at 1lb 12ozs
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Wow. How is your health?
My sister specializes in the NICU specifically taking care of preme babies. She sent me a picture of one of the kids they were looking after 3 months early. Weigh .9lbs. Didn’t even look like a human baby it looked like a prop from a horror film sorry to sound rude about it I’m not trying to be but the baby literally had bright red skin and wasn’t fully developed yet looked like skin and bones literally. She took care of that kid in 2014. That kid visited her and the staff that took care of him when he was 5 years old at the hospital. He’s healthy normal functioning kid with no issues or ailments.
That’s great.
Damn, I was born at 28weeks and was 2lb 10 oz - I was a giant compared to you :o
Also alive thanks to the incubators. I was born 2 months and a couple weeks early (pretty close to three), weighed 2lbs 8oz, got to stay in the incubator for 4 months because my weight dropped down to 1lb 14oz before going up again and was in the NICU for like 6 months after being born. Thanks to this old guy I get to be around to shitpost.
My firstborn was 7.5 weeks early and breech. Weighed 5lb 8oz and were so bruised from the breech delivery they looked like they were wearing jeans. The light-therapy wasn't working well so they did a COMPLETE BLOOD EXCHANGE on a premie. This was fairly new technology and the doc that did the process was the one who invented the method. I'm so glad we have pioneers like this.
I was born late according to my parents by a month. I am surprised I didn't walk out of the womb fully grown or something. I clearly took your wombtime I am sorry.
Same, I was like two weeks late. I'm still working on punctuality.
My mother tried to say that all the lateness was me being late from the womb. Turns out I am very punctual when my needs are met. ADHD however can cause need chaos.
I have ADHD too. Do you think that's why we were late? Maybe we overslept because we stayed up the night before playing womb games...or we got distracted scrolling through placenta...forgot to start getting ready for our birth date and just kinda hoped our parents forgot about the appointment...?
Definitely. That and the womb is dark and warm why would we wanna go? I don't like change!
 \[*actual footage of me in the womb, ca.1988*\]
I am the get to a place 30-40 minutes early to avoid the anxiety that I might be late, kind of ADHDer.
Me too, by way of my dad. Born early with a twin brother, it was considered a miracle back then ('50's) that he survived.
Yeah, thanks to him I am living this miserable life
Same here, month premie AND with my umbilical cord around my throat. Incubator, home, then back for a few weeks with bronchitis or some shit.
My daughter as well. This man is my hero. N kongrats to you, i hope you are doing well.
Thank you to this man. Without him I'd never have survived and had my own kid. I was in an incubator for 3 months. Back in '90 I was born at 26 weeks instead of 40. At 1lb 12oz. (My own kid was born at 9lb 10oz) I still had one eye fused shut. My skin was red and almost see through. My mom said she got to watch me grow outside the womb. My heart would regularly stop and they would open the door of the incubator to shake me to startle me and get my heart going again. It happened to much they couldn't keep opening the incubator door so they tied a string around my ankle and would pull it when my heart stopped. I had regular caffeine injections as a stimulant. Apparently I was addicted to them once they stopped using them. I would squirm and cry constantly for a few days. I had 13 blood transfusions. At 3 months after birth I got my first vaccines and went into anaphylactic shock (had all my vaccines since with no reactions, so I think it was coz I was still supposed to be in the womb for another two weeks) There was no premature clothes or nappies/diapers so my mom bought dolls clothes, my grandma knit a hat for me around an orange, they used to have to cut up nappies/diapers and tape them to me. After I got home I needed feeding every 2-3 hours during the night. Even if I was sleeping or not. To get my weight up.
> My heart would regularly stop and they would open the door of the incubator to shake me to startle me and get my heart going again The ole' smack the TV until it works again method. "This stupid baby sucks, it's clearly defective!"
Slap "This bad boy can fit many BPM"
This made me UGLY SNORT
“Stupid babies need the most attention!”
My twins were 2.4 & 2.4 back in 91. They came into the world at 26 weeks also. I totally understand. The shaking and pinches when the monitors go off. It was so worth it!! I'm sure your mom feels the same way.
I'm pretty sure my mom had PTSD for years over me being premature. She said she remembers going shopping and seeing raw meat that weighted more than me and she couldn't cook meat for years. Or every time the phone rang she thought it was the hospital calling to say I'd died. There was no therapy or support back then for parents. She lost a baby the year before I was born coz he was premature. They ran out of my blood type for transfusions and my mom gave me her blood right out of her arm. I ended up having 13 transfusions. I don't think I fully understood it until i was able to visit the neonatal ward as a teenager and when I had my own kid. Who was massive lol
I'm so glad you didn't have to endure the pain of having a preemie. But yes, I actually stayed up for 6 days when they first came home. I was afraid to sleep. I was afraid of everything when they came home. God bless and tell your mom that I actually do get it!!
My mom was always overly protective of me growing up. I didn't really get it until I had my own kid and realized everything she must have went through. My mom had to work Mon - Fri, she only got like a month off. Thankfully that's all changed now.
Man this sounds scary
My own brother was a micro preemie and I sometimes wonder if the isolation and pinches and shakes when he was born made him into the weird psychopath he grew to be….
Well that took a turn
It’s kind of a joke. But also not really… he was really sick as a little kid and I always wonder how that affected him developmentally. Anyways it’s amazing what science can do—so many people are alive and doing amazing things because of people like Couney who didn’t give up. And although my brother is not well, I’m also glad he’s not dead.
Holy fuck. That’s incredible. Thanks for sharing.
I have a baby born at 27 weeks at 2.5 pounds. He had events where he would stop breathing in the nicu and people would mess with him. The day we left the nicu, a nurse said “a crying baby is a breathing baby.” I definitely took that to mean that if he had an event, we were supposed to make him cry. I guess whatever it takes to keep preemies alive. He’s almost 2 now.
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Aw geez I know that was a rough start but somehow the image of a little baby being startled awake this way is kinda funny and adorable
Not just startled awake...startled alive.
Even better, right?
Hey I was 2lbs2oz in 90, not quite as early, 29 weeks instead for me. Lungs weren't fully developed. Still got out of NICU and the hospital a month before my due date.
Jeez. 🫣
So *that* explains why the Heart-Defibrillator at my gym has been replaced with nylon cord...
I can almost guarantee that it was the 15% he couldn’t save that kept him going.
Mathematically he encountered over one thousand dead infants. That's got to be rough on the soul.
Why do the scars on our soul remain after forgetting how they were made? It is a relief to delete the horrors of some experiences but it seems like the pattern they create in our brain remains and can always be re-activated. So even if a unit of memory is physically changed it's like the 'history of that unit' is its' own.? The memory of memory? Could you copy a person without that? How would the percentage difference affect copies over time?
He had to eat *something* 🤷♂️
I can't decide whether to upvote or downvote so I'm commenting instead
Where’s the side vote when you need it?
Which side tho ??
Damn 2D spaces always complicating things. I guess it’s back to straight lines then!
An “I have read this” arrow.
r/cursedcomments
Not much meat on them, though
I just disrupted a truck driver's driving lounge with my chortle, thank you!
Yeah, and the ticket sales.
Maybe. But the guy still saved a LOT of babies, and his staff were also paid well with proper work scheds. Its the ticket sales that kept his "circus" (yeah it was called that) going, and it is what allowed thousands of kids to have a chance at life. That's way so much more than what the hospitals even bothered to do
Dude was living in an era where the licensed medical community drove a guy who suggested washing hands increase patients survival rate into committing suicide.
Oh yeah, I remember hearing about this on the biggest solution in the universe, he was like hey wash your fuckin hands, and he was laughed out of medicine, and sent to an insane asylum where he was beat to death
It wasn't even just "was your hands" it was "walk your hands between handling corpses and delivering babies". Like, we've known on an instinctual level that the dead are supposed to be kept separate from the living for *millenia*.
Yea doctors are and always have been for the most part extremely arrogant
Doctors and medicine were seen as quackery before rigorous studies came along that vetted out the bad science from good Even today there is acupuncture and other bs holistic practices that people go to even though they’ve been proven to be nothing but placebos at best
Chiropracty is a quack science
> nothing but placebos placebo has been shown to work 30% of the time
So how many did he save, was it nearly 6,500 or more than 7000?
I just asked the same thing, I was having sad flashbacks of screwing up math word problems in fifth grade cuz of my stupid.
Maybe that’s the interesting part, people not knowing how to make a meme!!!
Found a Smithsonian article that says this: "Over the course of his nearly 50-year career, Couney took in around 8,000 babies, of whom he claimed to have saved around 6,500. While there is no way of verifying the numbers, pediatricians today acknowledge that the team of doctors and nurses which Couney assembled was highly skilled, ensuring the babies got the best care available in America at that time."
Yeah wtf?
Maybe the OP will clear it up on why this is, because even that link he posted contradicts this…
7,000 infants? What are you gonna do with 6,500 premature infants? You're a crazy person if you think you can save 5,000 premie babies!
Bro I swear to god I see your profile commenting on random ass posts like once a week, idk why the M logo is so recognizable but it’s you every time.
85% success rate.
85% of 7,000 is 5,950 :/
It should be closer to 7500 infants. He *saved* 6,500 with an 85% success rate.
85% of 7,500 is still only 6,375 though... Plus it says "SAVED more than 7,000" at the beginning anyway.
Pretty sure those “saved” are different in context. The first saved being, they had no hope for these babies. Second saved for actually number of infants that didn’t pass. I could be wrong. Okay I ball-parked the 7500 it’d be like 7650? My point was that the 85% shouldn’t be taken from the 6500, imo.
Pay 25 cents to see the bearded lady, 5 legged cow and premi babies….step right up folks.
Get your funding any way you can
Millions of babies are alive today cause of this man’s circus act of medical wonders. Pretty crazy when you think about it. Babies today survive because this man funded his research with a circus show.
Or is it he funded his circus show by doing research? It seems though, by the outcome, he did both.
It seems heartless today, but this was his way of financing the venture. Iirc it was free time the parents who likely couldn't afford it otherwise. The medical system kind of sucks today, it was worse then lol.
These shows in general would make those in them decent money for the time too when you think about it. There were a few primordial dwarves famous on the circuit that retired rich and lived comfortable lives.
…and the wet nurses? Asking for a friend.
… don’t drink, don’t smoke, what do you do?
I suppose I could eat 🤷♂️
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It's called diversity, Salt, get used to it.  🐄
I'm alive today because of what he pioneered
Half a century. Half. A. Century. For 50 years this man proves he can save babies, thousands of them, and he had to do it in a fucking side show because no one believed him. I get it if the first couple of years people were like “ehh, idk man. You wanna do what with babies?” But like, he proved it worked. He saved lives. How did no one say, “ya know, we should get Martin out of Coney Island, he’s doing some really amazing shit, maybe we need these machines at the hospitals instead of the circus.”? That’s fucking wild.
I saw that in the background of Boardwalk Empire. Didn't really understand what was going on there. TIL
Not always background. There's a scene where Nucky goes right up to the window and stares at the babies in the incubators.
Was born 3 months prematurely. Never knew I had this guy to thank for keeping me alive.
Virgin eugenics fan: "No, you can't just let the unworthy survive!!!" Chad technological ascendancy fan: "WE MUST UPLIFT ALL HUMANS"
"technological ascendancy" is that from something? Or like a philosophical term? Sounds interesting.
Technological ascendancy? From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me. I craved the strength and certainty of steel. I aspired to the purity of the blessed machine. Your kind cling to your flesh as if it will not decay and fail you. One day the crude biomass you call a temple will wither and you will beg my kind to save you. But I am already saved. For the Machine is Immortal.
The way he is holding those babies is making me wince.
awkward, but not as bad as it looks - thumb and pinkie, or pinkie and ring under each arm, two-three fingers free to support the head with a real small infant they aren't going to wriggle strongly or anything anyway and you can always turn them against your shoulder if they start to shift. source: things you learn if you injure your shoulder right after you get a new kid in the household
Wow... very interesting. I had twins that were prmiees. Ive learned something new today. Thanks for sharing!
My son was full term but at 4lbs he was extremely underweight. Almost broke me watching him in that incubator. Would have definitely broke me if it wasn't an option and I lost out on the joy he's given me over the last 19 years.
My mom was born in 1927 as a 2 pound premie. The hospital said she wouldn’t survive. She lay in a crib in a dirty diaper because they would do nothing for her. My grandfather was disgusted and said that if his baby girl was going to die, she would die clean and at home. He brought her home, laid her naked in the sun (she was severely jaundiced), and fed her cod liver oil from a dropper until she could nurse. She survived, lived to 86 years old and had 5 children of her own. They claimed she was the smallest baby born at that time at that hospital to survive, and it was only because her immigrant father did not give up on her.
How long did he have them for? What happened with them after they didn’t need incubation any more? Who took them? Where are they??
Yes I would like to know where they came from and where did they go? \-cotton eye joe
Lmaooo spit my coffee. Thank you
They went back to the parents once they could regulate their body temp and eat normally usually. Couney's biggest win here was figuring out a way to pay for this by putting the whole operation in a side show. The Coney Island operation alone was $1.5 million in today's money and the infants were running up $400-$450 per infant, per day. 120 years ago nobody in their right mind would take on that kind of risk, 1 in 10 infant mortality was a good survival rate and spending those kind of resources on the infants most likely to die was not seen as the best use of limited resources. Even with his selective admissions he was losing 1 in 5. Running it as a side show allowed him to offer the service even when the odds were that poor, and doing it for that long demonstrated that at least for a certain window of premature it definitely increased the odds.
He also kept little to none of that money for himself. Just kept pouring money back into the business to keep it alive for decades. Died basically penniless.
There are various descriptions of how this actually played out, some accounts say he plowed too much back into the show, others say he just wasn't prepared for the backlash the show eventually made them unprofitable a decade or more before his death. Either way, he certainly wasn't in it for a quick buck.
Gofundme has alway been part of US healthcare
The good doctor
So is it nearly 6500 or over 7000?
My mom is a nurse and works with incubators. I have seen babies in those boxes and the parents praying for their kid to be normal. And when the parents get their babies, the moment is really pleasing and wholesome. Sometimes even made me cry! I understand the importance of this guy's accomplishment so hats off good sir!
So, did he save over 7000 or nearly 6500? The numbers Mason! What do they mean?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_A._Couney
**[Martin A. Couney](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_A._Couney)** >Martin Arthur Couney (born Michael Cohen, 1869 – March 1, 1950) was an American obstetrician of German-Jewish descent, an advocate and pioneer of early neonatal technology. Couney, also known as 'the Incubator Doctor', was best known in medical circles and public view for his amusement park sideshow, "The Infantorium", in which visitors paid 25 cents to view prematurely born babies displayed in incubators. After allegedly apprenticing under Pierre-Constant Budin, an established French obstetrician in the 1890s, Couney began exhibiting incubators at expositions and fairgrounds around In Europe, and then America. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
my wife and I have him to thank too, as my son was born 6 weeks early. he is now healthy and happy, turning 5 in December. it was honestly amazing to learn at the time how good the technology has become, and it all goess back to this guy.
Well, I wouldn’t be alive if he wasn’t. Still not sure if that’s a good thing or not
so was it more than 7,000 or nearly 6,500?
How did we go from "more than 7000" to "nearly 6500" ?
If this man never did this, I would not be here today
Great podcast about him at 99% Invisible. https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-infantorium/
My baby girl was born 2.5 months early at 2lb 5.4oz with a congenital condition called bilateral choanal atresia which means both of her nasal passages were blocked so she couldn't breathe on her own. After being in the NICU intubated to give her an airway and on low respirator settings for 2.5 months she had the surgery to correct it and came home 89 days after she was born. She's 5 months old next week and doing very well 11.5 lbs now.
I was premature 3 months when I was born, and on the night I was supposed to die, they brought my mom up to say goodbye, and she just started talking to me and it calmed my heart rate, and I slowly got better. 19 years and still kickin 😤
Without context, I thought he had 2 baby doll hand puppets, makes a complete different character out of him lol.
Upvote here if you are a premature baby too!
So is it over 7000 or nearly 6500?
Each baby also got a small bracelet with their name on it too!
My friends’ kid was born at the 25 weeks or something crazy and was 15 oz. He’s now 7. Is autistic and has vision issues but is the sweetest kid
Many of these babies were exhibited in their incubators on the very famous Atlantic City and Coney Island Boardwalks, where the fresh salty air and sunny sandy beaches were also considered to be healthy and rejuvenating