24: Staring a baby Owen in a plexiglass crib

Today I'm introducing what I hope to be a continuing series of guest blog entries. This one comes from my mother. I didn't edit the entry in any way other than to ad the introduction, the title and post labels.

When Owen was a baby, probably 1 or 2 years old, doing a 24 hour urine test was done in a most interesting way. The hospital had a crib that instead of having bars on the side, was made of plexiglass. All four sides were clear and there was a cage type cover on the top (to keep him from crawling out!).

Owen was then put in this crib, naked, and left in there for 24 hours. The bottom of the crib had a slight slant to it down to a funnel which led to a jug underneath the crib. This way, any pee that might happen in that time would run into the jug so they could measure it. He could have toys as long they were not absorbent in any way and he could not have any blankets.

We were able to wander the floor with it though, so we would wheel the crib with a naked Owen in it to the playroom, out to the phones, pretty well anywhere we wanted to go. Owen didn’t like the crib much and he would get pretty rank by the end of the 24 hours. This was done to him probably every time we went to the hospital. As soon as he was able to tell us when he had to pee, they stopped using the crib.

Owen's Mom