Premature Babies and Happy Endings

Readers sometimes wonder whether journalists allow their politics or their advertisers to influence how the news is covered. But I've noticed a different bias over the years in coverage about extremely premature infants. Call it the bias in favor of a happy ending.

Take, for example, the opening sentences from Monday's article by Erika Beras in the Miami Herald under the headline "Miracle Baby Going Home to Homestead with Parents":

When she was born, she was 9 ½ inches long and weighed about 10 ounces. The doctors didn't give her much of a chance.

But Amillia Taylor is a fighter.

This week, Amillia, now 17 weeks old and weighing 4 pounds, drank from a baby bottle for the first time.

And today, she'll go home.

But in fact, the odds are stacked against a baby born this small. And whether we like it or not, little Amilla Taylor, whose conception occurred as a result of in vitro fertilization, has many medical problems that will likely plague her the rest of her life.

Who doesn't want a happy ending when it comes to little babies? But I've seen it happen so many times before. Initial enthusiasm over a very premature baby who weighed less than a pound at birth gives way to grim updates--if any appear at all--about the baby's health.

And indeed, I now see that doctors are not releasing Amilla from the hospital after all. She has, according to the (shorter) followup story in the Miami Herald, "a number of ailments" and "needs extra care."