ICU AND YOU · Superpuzzle #48

What these puzzles are for

The crossword is a pretext. Twenty clues is not a syllabus and nobody learns intensive care from a grid. What a puzzle does well is hold your attention on a word for a few seconds longer than a list would, and put a fact beside it while you are looking.

So the clues are deliberately mixed. Some are practice points you should already know and may not have thought about lately. Some are pieces of physiology. Some are history — a person, a case, a year — because knowing where a thing came from makes it stick. One or two are simply odd, and those are in here on purpose: curiosity is the thing that makes the rest of it go in.

Several clues teach rather than test: you will see the answer immediately and learn something getting there. That is the intention, not a failure of construction.

There is a printable version if you would rather work that way, and a challenge at the foot of the page.

Type straight into the grid — click a square or a clue to start, and the letters will advance for you. Nothing is saved, so finish in one sitting and press Send my answers when you are done. Most of it comes from the mind map for this topic. Four are history, and one of those is a Colombian hospital that ran out of incubators.

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On a phone, scroll the grid sideways. Arrow keys move; typing a letter moves you on; backspace steps back.

Printable version →

Across

5born with the amniotic membrane still over the head — once thought to protect against drowning
6metabolite above 100 that points to an inborn error of metabolism
8infusion that reopens the duct, at the cost of apnoea
11what you start a term resuscitation in, rather than 100% oxygen
14waxy coating that reduces heat and water loss at birth
15fine hair covering the preterm baby, shed before term
16the corrective steps when the chest will not rise: Mask, Reposition, Suction, Open mouth, Pressure, Airway
17Dr Apgar's first name — she devised the score in 1953, and the backronym came nine years later

Down

1phospholipid that stops the alveoli collapsing at the end of every breath
2…… colour change: one half of the baby flushes, the other stays pale, and it means nothing at all
3ratio of compressions to breaths in the newborn (three words)
4…… score, which estimates gestational age from posture and skin
7…… care, skin to skin, invented in Bogotá in 1978 when the incubators ran out
8the saturation probe goes on the right hand at birth, giving this reading
9group B streptococcus, by its species name
10antiviral added when the neonate seizes or has vesicles
12the pulses you must feel for in any collapsed baby
13seconds of delayed cord clamping in the vigorous newborn

Sending your answers

Finish it, or get as far as you get — partial sets are welcome and are how I find out which clue was unfair. The button collects whatever you have typed and puts it into an email to me.

If the button does nothing on your device, screenshot the grid and send it to icuandyou@icloud.com instead.