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Rebecca Adams, like most mothers, can recall the moments when her daughter was born on July 17, 1983, at Brotman Medical Center in Culver City.

“There were about 15 people in the room and everyone was working very fast,” she said. “She was born breech, with one push to start her body out and another easy push for her head.”

But the baby, named Camerin, was 16 weeks premature. She weighed 1 pound, 7 ounces.

“They put the resuscitator tube down her windpipe and the catheter into her umbilicus,” the mother recalled. “She had time to make one tiny squeak before they took her to the intensive care unit.”

Transferred immediately to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s neonatal intensive care unit, Camerin over the next 15 weeks was given the best medical treatment that money could buy. The bill, most of which was picked up by Richard and Rebecca Adams’ health-insurance carrier, came to $195,359.75. The doctor fee, which they are still paying, was $21,245.

Today, more than a year later, the Adams have what they had prayed for--a happy, healthy child who, thanks to modern medicine, luck and whatever other forces come to play in such cases, beat the odds against her.

Not all premature or low-weight babies are as lucky as Camerin. About 20,000 babies weighing between 1.1 and 2.2 pounds will be born in the United States this year. Despite the dramatic improvements in survival during the last decade, the risk of dying--and perhaps worse, of lifelong serious physical and mental damage--is high.

Difficult Issue

It is a difficult issue for doctors. Dr. Andrea Morrison, a pediatric neurologist, points out that a large percentage of babies who stand a good chance of being brain damaged actually escape that fate. Unfortunately, doctors can seldom predict early in life whether such an infant has been brain damaged, or even whether he will survive.

“Doctors do poorly on guessing when a baby is going to die,” said Dr. Jeffrey Pomerance, chief of neonatology at Cedars-Sinai. Therefore, he said, doctors can have a difficult time deciding whether to unleash the full force of technology to save an infant--for better or for worse.

Camerin Adams turned out to be a remarkably uncomplicated case, according to Pomerance. Most of the other babies who shared the intensive care unit with her will also lead lives that are reasonably normal. Others died, and a few will spend the rest of their lives in nursing homes or state hospitals. Many more, although living at home, will require extensive--and expensive--care for the handicaps they bear.

For some parents, the future for their baby is unclear even many months after birth.

Billy (not his real name) is an example. At birth Billy could not breath properly and he was placed on a respirator. He has been on a respirator in a hospital neonatal intensive care unit for five months.

“The doctors didn’t think he would live long. They were surprised he was even born,” Billy’s mother said recently.

Billy has deeply sunken eyes and the doctors say they are not sure whether he can see--or hear. They say he is brain damaged.

Mother Has Hope

“The doctors say they don’t think he will ever come off the respirator, but we think it is a distinct possibility that he will,” the mother said. “They said they would let him go by taking him off the respirator, but we said no. If he goes, he goes on his own.”

Billy has had two major operations and may need another. But his mother said she is not sure whether she would give permission.

“My heart says one thing, my mind another,” she said.