A newborn infant is found dead, abandoned by the road. Among the many questions that the police would like to have answers to is whether the infant was born dead or alive. After an autopsy, the medical examiner tells them that the infant was dead at birth. How could the medical examiner determine this?
What will be an ideal response?
Unless the infant was suffocated immediately at birth, the first breath that it took would start to inflate the lungs and some of the air would be trapped in the lungs. By placing the lungs in water to see if they float or not, the medical examiner can determine whether or not there is any air in the lungs. Other measurements and tests could also be used to determine if the infant had breathed at all (air in the lungs) or was dead at birth (lungs collapsed and a small amount of fluid in the alveoli).
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