A 1,900 g newborn may be a well-grown 33-week infant or a growth-restricted 39-week infant, and those two babies need almost opposite anticipatory care. Ask gestational age and birth weight as separate questions, plot the answer, and read what each axis predicts. Then switch to the ten minutes before the birth — the obstetric emergency whose first action decides which newborn you receive.
Set up the newborn
Gestational age predicts organ maturity — surfactant, gut motility, hepatic conjugation, thermal control. Birth weight predicts substrate reserve, surface-area-to-mass ratio and the mechanical difficulty of the birth.
In each of these the correct first action is the counterintuitive one, and getting it wrong changes the baby you receive at the warmer.
Emergency 1 of 5
Plot a newbornEnter a gestational age and a birth weight
Waiting
The percentile band is an illustrative teaching reference drawn from standard intrauterine growth data; the growth chart in use on your unit is the one that governs a real plot. What transfers is the reading: below the 10th line is small for gestational age, above the 90th is large for gestational age, and the space between is appropriate for gestational age.
The ten minutes before you receive the babyChoose the first action
Read the case on the left
Every one of these emergencies is an obstetric event with a newborn consequence. Pick the first action and the bench will tell you what arrives at the warmer.