ICU AND YOU · Superpuzzle #49 — The Postneonatal Infant

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. Three are history, one is a Victorian verdict, and one is a wheeled seat that Canada made illegal.

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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

4A rash that does not blanch is this bloodstream infection until proven otherwise (Australian spelling)
9A bruise in a baby not yet able to do this is a red flag
10Wheeled seat that Canada, alone in the world at the time, banned outright in April 2004 after nearly two thousand injuries in a twelve-year period, but not banned everywhere — baby ___
11Sleep comforter — Australian and British term — associated with a reduced risk of sudden infant death
12Position for every sleep, every time — and no, the side is not an acceptable alternative
14Sweet food that must not be given before twelve months, including on a dummy, because of Clostridium botulinum spores
16Soft spot that closes between nine and eighteen months, and sometimes bulges when it should not
18Leading cause of hospital admission in the first year of life
19In a sick infant, a slow heart rate means this until proven otherwise
20Virus behind most bronchiolitis, by its initials

Down

1Membrane under the upper lip; a torn one is a classic marker of inflicted injury
2Estimated weight in kg for an infant under one = (age in months + 9) divided by this
3Haemorrhages sought on fundoscopy in abusive head trauma
5Bowel telescoping into bowel; ultrasound is the first-line investigation
6Nineteenth-century verdict for cot death, still found on old certificates
7Chest wall property that leaves an infant so dependent on the diaphragm
8What the young or ex-preterm infant with bronchiolitis may do — and the reason to admit
13Normal startle reflex of infancy, described in 1918, present at birth and gone by six months — its persistence is the abnormality
15Fever of five days or more with four of: red eyes, cracked lips, rash, swollen hands, enlarged cervical nodes — and coronary aneurysms if it is missed. ___ disease
17Route to use when the veins have failed — drilled, not cannulated

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.