One man saved a generation of premature babies (2016) (opens in new tab)

I'm pretty sure that's what caused my blindness. My dad has even told me that he remembers thinking at the time that 100% oxygen wasn't a good idea. I'm kind of lucky though that only one retina fully detached. They were able to save one eye, so I have some vision at least.

Interesting. I wasn't aware of that. On the same topic of vision, a recent study argues that preemies are also more susceptible to astigmatism and myopia, whether they have retinopathy or not[0].

As a preemie myself (born 28 weeks), I have a feeling that even though there has been much work on the immediate effects of prematurity, the long-term consequences of being born prematurely have, on the contrary, been severely understudied. And let's not even mention the causes themselves -- even though some effects or behaviours from the mother may increase the chances of giving birth prematurely (smoking, stress), nothing seems to be absolutely set in stone, at least as far as I know.

[0] https://tp.amegroups.org/article/view/39381/30467

The effect of blindness though incubators was so pronounced that these days, assistive technology companies put a significant amount of revenue decrease towards this having been fixed. IOW, the incubator misuse created a whole generation of blind people and a whole industry around them.

As an aside Stevie Wonder is active in the NFB and at CSUN. I’ve never had the opportunity to meet him, but he greatly contributes to the blind community.

Interestingly, the end of public medical procedures is fairly recent in US history. There's a Seinfeld episode that revolves around a public procedure. [1]

[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0697715/

The show the artful dodger showcases this quite a bit.

Heck it’s how the surgeons got paid.

I mean, it’s called a operating theater for a reason