Fetal Position (House episode)
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| House episode | |
| "Fetal Position" | |
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| Episode no. | HOU-317 |
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| Airdate | April 3, 2007 |
| Writer(s) | Russel Friend & Garrett Lerner |
| Director(s) | Matt Shakman |
| Guest star(s) | Anne Ramsay Tyson Ritter |
| All House episodes | |
Fetal Position is the seventeenth episode of the third season of House and the sixty third episode overall.
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[edit] Plot Overview
Pregnant photographer Emma arrives at a photo shoot for rock star Tyson Ritter, but she can’t read the writing on a prop chalk board. She starts slurring her speech and says she’s having a stroke before passing out.
House comes in to visit Emma, who is checked in at the hospital. He runs some tests and determines her kidneys have shut down, and resolves to find the underlying cause of the stroke. Emma is interested in taking photos of House, and the staff is interested in House’s photo. House has the staff run tests to determine if she has a clot in her heart, while he discusses his vacation plans. Cameron wonders why House didn’t say anything about seeing her and Chase together. They confirm House’s diagnoses and prepare to put in a balloon to clear the clot.
The staff clears the clot but Emma’s kidneys are still shut down and the staff runs various diagnoses. They come up with five possible conditions but they all test negative. House confronts Emma and warns that there’s something wrong with the fetus.
It’s back to the white board where House explains that the fetus is dying and could take the mother with it. House decides to paralyze the fetus and Cuddy confronts him on it. He tells her that Cameron and Chase are having sex in the hospital, then agrees to let House get Emma’s consent… and accompanies him. Emma agrees and Cuddy reassures her that House is the person to handle the situation. The subsequent tests show the bladder is four times normal size because of a urinary tract infection and Cuddy takes over the case. She talks to Cameron about her dating Chase and warns that Chase won’t be the one to get hurt.
Cameron finds House relaxing in a hyperbaric chamber in an attempt to build up his tolerance for high altitude (by reducing the pressure in the chamber), for his upcoming vacation. Cameron confronts him about talking to Cuddy. He ducks the matter while Cuddy tells Emma about the treatment they have planned to relieve the pressure on the fetus’ bladder. Cuddy then finds House in her office where he questions her diagnosis of bladder blockage, warning the first two tests will be inconclusive. He suggests that Cuddy is sympathizing with Emma as they are both older women having a baby through artificial insemination. Cuddy decides to hand the case back to House.
The third test proves positive and Chase gives the results to Emma, who is thankful things will turn out okay. Emma realizes that Chase is in love with Cameron. The doctors prepare to treat the baby but discover she is jaundiced and her liver is shutting down. House believes the fetus “lied” and the urinary tract infection is just a sign of something else. With time running out, House suggests there is only one sure cure: to deliver the baby at 21 weeks, two weeks earlier than when it is considered viable. House breaks the news to Emma and she wants to wait the two weeks, but House warns she won’t last two days. She refuses to have an abortion and demands House fix it so they can both live.
House goes to Cuddy who refuses to go to Emma. It’s back to a differential diagnosis with Cuddy running the board. Cuddy suggests a treatment and Cameron reluctantly backs her, suggesting they go through the veins in the neck to get to the liver. House mentions Cameron and Chase are dating out, much to Foreman’s surprise. They go with it while Cuddy suggests that an unenthusiastic House go on vacation. Chase and Foreman go ahead with the procedure, however, but fetus’ heart rate drops and Emma goes into pre-term labor. They manage to stop the contractions, but warn they’ll have to remove the fetus. Cuddy insists on finding the problem and suggests they have to check the undeveloped lungs. Cuddy suggests they use steroids to increase the lung growth, yet the staff refuses. Cuddy goes off to do it and Emma has another seizure. Wilson goes in to suggest it’s time to terminate and Cuddy tells him to help or get out.
Later, a concerned Cuddy goes to Wilson and admits that everyone was right and Emma’s lungs are shutting down. She wants to know what House would do if he was in her position, and Cuddy concludes that Emma doesn’t need her lungs because she’s on a machine, so she’s put the fetus back on steroids. Cuddy goes to House's house who is packing for his vacation and agrees to look at the tests now that the baby’s lungs have expanded. They go back to the hospital and try to figure out a way to examine the lungs more thoroughly. They finally decide to do exploratory surgery and explain things to Emma. She agrees and they take her into surgery where House performs the operation. During the operation the baby’s hand emerges and briefly grasps House’s hand. They find lesions in the baby’s lungs but Emma goes into ventricular fibrillation. House prepares to cut the umbilical but Cuddy insists on applying the paddles until Emma revives.
House informs Emma that the baby is now fine and Emma thanks him. House tells her to thank Cuddy because he would have killed the kid. Chase meets with Cameron who notices a photo that Emma took of him, one that shows him “glowing,” from earlier when he was talking about Cameron. Cuddy gives House a ticket for a vacation to Vancouver Island and he tells her she made the wrong call and got lucky. Cuddy is fine with her decision and tells him to go get happy. House goes home and rips up the ticket, then takes the phone off the hook and settles down for a night of television and Vicodin. He is deep in thought as he stares at the finger where the baby touched him.
It is implied that great deal of time passed between the last two scenes of the episode. The episode states that at the time of her hospitalization, Emma was 21 weeks (5 months and 1 week) pregnant, but the final scene of the episode showed her at her home, hanging up photos of House and his staff and caring for her newborn son. If, after she left the hospital, Emma carried the child to term (nine months), then the episode jumped about four months into the future.
[edit] Diagnosis
[edit] Medical Terms
- Pregnancy
- Stroke
- Artificial insemination
- Streptococcal infections
- Rheumatic fever
- Mitral valve stenosis
- CCAM
[edit] Clinic Patients
None
[edit] Trivia
[edit] Memorable Moments
- Cuddy said that there's no one she would trust more with her baby than House, much to House's surprise.
- After the fetus touched House's finger during the surgery, House referred to it as a baby instead of a fetus.
- When Emma is having a stroke she uses the mnemonic FAST: Face (crooked smile), Arms (unable to hold them up), Speech (slurred), and Time (if a patient is having a stroke, treatment within three hours of the attack allows one to have a less chance of irreversible brain damage)
- In this episode Cuddy is seen paying an inordinate amount of attention to House's case, even going so far as to take it over twice. While House appears to be quite insensitive when deducing the reason behind her involvement it is possible that he was simply concerned for her well being. House is seen making at least one reference about Cuddy's undue empathy towards Emma and her baby, which came in the form of a metaphor during his second differential diagnosis. When Chase asked "Who are the Jews in this metaphor?" the answer was Cuddy.
[edit] Allusions and References
There is an interesting parallel to the comedy Scrubs, which featured Brendan Fraser as an amateur photographer, who took black-and-white photographs that captured the moment; the end of this episode features a similar montage. While this may not be a subtle tip of the hat to Scrubs, it follows a direct reference to this show in the Scrubs episode "My House". Also, another similarity is with the Scrubs episode "My Road to Nowhere", where Turk operates prenatally on Jordan's fetus, and the baby's hand grabs onto Turk's finger.
The scene where House touches the baby's hand is reminiscent of a photo taken during fetal surgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Centre. VUMC See Samuel Armas.
As Cuddy snaps House out of a long pause while the fetus touches his finger, House mentions he was thinking that he forgot to Tivo Alien, a reference to when the babies in the movie Alien pop out of people's chests.
When talking about his flight to the Cambodia, House requests not to have a layover in several cities, the last of which is London, Ontario a town of about 350,000 in south-western Ontario named for its counterpart in the UK.
[edit] Quotes
Cuddy: "Did you give corticosteroids to speed the baby's lung development?"
House: "No, I dropped an anvil on its chest to prevent lung development! I'm trying to extinguish the human race one fetus at a time."
[edit] Music
- "Bastards of Young" by the Replacements, during teaser
- "Are You Alright?" by Lucinda Williams, ending scene
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- FOX.com - House official site
- Television Without Pity - House recaps
- House Episode Guide at epguides.com
- TVGuide's Page: Full list of House Episodes
- House M.D. Guide
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| Episode list | Awards | Soundtrack | |
| Cast and crew | |
|---|---|
| David Shore | Hugh Laurie | Lisa Edelstein | Robert Sean Leonard | Omar Epps | Jennifer Morrison | Jesse Spencer | |
| Characters | |
| Gregory House | Lisa Cuddy | James Wilson | Eric Foreman | Allison Cameron | Robert Chase |
