Maternity (House)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| House episode | |
| "Maternity" | |
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| Episode no. | HOU-104 |
|---|---|
| Airdate | December 7, 2004 |
| Writer(s) | Peter Blake |
| Director(s) | Newton Thomas Sigel |
| Guest star(s) | Hedy Burress |
| All House episodes | |
Maternity is the fourth episode of the first season of House, which premiered on the FOX network on December 7, 2004. A number of newborn babies acquire unknown diseases simultaneously. House and his aides must race against the clock to save them and avoid further spread of the disease.
[edit] Plot
Still in the hospital, the newborn Hartig daughter, Maxine, spits up and the mother is concerned because the baby hasn't eaten anything yet. The baby suffers a seizure. Later, the doctor who was in the room recounts the incident to another doctor in the lounge. He discusses the baby’s bowel obstruction. House overhears their chat and quickly leaves.
House presents Maxine to Cuddy as Exhibit A. Exhibit B is Baby Hausen, another newborn who is also ill. House thinks it is a nosocomial infection, but Cuddy doesn't believe it's the beginning of an epidemic. House tours his team in the maternity ward to check the other newborns in the hospital, and they find one more baby with a sudden fever and similar symptoms. Later, they find another infant who is developing symptoms as well.
House and crew discuss four sick babies and the symptoms. With a spike in fever and low blood pressure, these children could be dead in one day. The group thinks it might be a bacterial infection. Since there's no time to wait for test results, House orders two treatments to be started. Each baby gets an MRI. Nothing shows up on the scan, so the doctors continue administering two antibacterials. One of them starts causing the kidneys to shut down in two of the four babies. House says there’s no point in guessing, so take Baby Hartig off the aztreonam medication and Baby Chin-Lupino off the vancomycin, deciding which baby will get which drug with a coin toss.
Dr. Cuddy and a hospital administration refuse to allow House to change the treatments without informing the parents. He pleads that this experiment will save at least six more babies, so Cuddy gives him the green light. Later, the Chen-Lupino baby's health begins to worsen with a falling heart rate and blood pressure. The doctors rush in and try to shock the baby back to life, to no avail. The aztreonam doesn't work. House instructs his staff to cover the rest of the babies with vancomycin.
House instructs Cameron to tell the deceased baby's parents (Kim Chen and Judy Lupino), that their son has saved five more babies' lives. But instead, Wilson tells the shocking news, causing the parents to be devastated, Cameron feeling sorry for them and House completely disappointed with what she's done.
Chase informs the team that the vancomycin isn't working either as Maxine's getting worse. House performs an autopsy on Baby Chen-Lupino and devises a theory that it is a virus that is affecting the babies' hearts. Foreman complains that it could be any one of thousands of viruses. However, with the amount of blood in the babies’ bodies, they can only run five or six tests. So House tries to narrow down the list of possibilities, and ends up with eight. House also has Cuddy take blood from the one healthy newborn in the hospital to use as a control group.
The sick babies all test positive for Echovirus 11, CMV, and Parvovirus B19. The healthy baby tests positive for Echo and CMV antibodies. House realizes that these infants still have their mothers' blood and immune systems, so he orders a test on the mothers to see what they have antibodies for. Whatever the women are missing is what is killing their kids. After more testing, the doctors settle on Echo. They have an experimental anti-virus in the hospital and give it a shot.
That night, House observes an elderly hospital volunteer coughing and wiping her nose as she pushes around a cart of baby toys and blankets, and realizes that she was the original source of the virus.
[edit] External links
- FOX.com-House official site
- Television Without Pity-House recaps
- House Episode Guide at epguides.com
- TVGuide's Page: Full list of House Episodes
- House M.D. Guide
- Medical Reviews of House: Maternity
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