Taking Your Premature Baby Home

Author:

Rachel of tinylittlebaby

As a parent of a premature baby on the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit the one thing you are desperately waiting to hear is the magical words ‘you can take your baby home’

From the moment your baby is born you are waiting to hear those magical words, however for a lot of parents those six words also bring a lot of fear and anxiety.

 Until this time your precious baby has been looked after 24/7 by a number of different types of doctors, nurses and many other heath practitioners. There will have been monitors and high-tech equipment that you have got used to and come to rely on for reassurance whilst on the unit, you will have grown used to this level of support and that there is always someone around for advice and support. So it is understandable that you will be worried and anxious as well as relieved and excited because at home you will be person caring for your baby, a very daunting thought.

The staff on  NICU would not  be letting you take your baby home if they did not think that your baby was well enough to leave NICU and that you were not capable of taking care of your baby.

Before leaving the hospital you will have been given training in how to perform basic resuscitation.  A lot of units have  rooms where you can stay overnight with your baby with the NICU nurses just next door, this can help give you the confidence you need to know that you can take care of your baby.

Once discharged from the unit you will still have a lot of support from health professionals, some of those involved will be your GP and health visitor, A lot of units have a specialist nurse who will visit you at home soon after being discharged to offer support and advice and your child will possibly have a pediatrician who will follow their progress.

If your baby was very premature, needed oxygen or was ventilated they may be at more risk of infection, some steps you can take to reduce risk of infection are:

• Make sure everyone who comes into contact with your baby washes their hands.
• Don\’t take your baby to crowded public places
• Don\’t take your baby into large air-conditioned places like a shopping centre, supermarkets.
• Ask people who have had a cold/ fever to refrain from visiting.

Taking your baby home from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit  for the first time is a very special experience and a very large milestone on your journey, take advantage of any help offered from family and friends, make sure to take time for yourself and enjoy being at home with your very special baby.

 For a baby record book designed for babies in NICU visit http://www.tinylittlebaby.co.uk

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/babies-articles/taking-your-premature-baby-home-2640271.html

About the Author

Mother of a premature baby and creator of STARTING LIFE IN NICU  a baby record book  designed for babies who start life in a neonatal intensive care unit http://www.tinylittlebaby.co.uk

Prem2Pram Under New Ownership

My name is Rachel and I have a four year old son. My son was born prematurely and was diagnosed at two days old with a congenital heart defect, he had a very rocky neonatal period and we spent many weeks between the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and a cardiac paediatric intensive care unit (PICU)  we spent his first Christmas on the NICU before finally bring him home.  He is my only child and the light of my life he amazes me every day.

My experience on the NICU inspired me to create Starting life in NICU which is a baby journal designed specifically for premature and sick babies and in 2010 I launched tinylittlebaby

Its through tinylittlebaby that I met a wonderful lady who’s help and advise was invaluable through those early days, that lady was Sue the founder and previous owner of Prem2Pram.  I am honoured to take over Prem2Pram and will continue to run the business with the passion that we both share.

The mother who had another woman’s baby by mistake

Author:  Jenny Johnston
Source: Daily Mail

Carolyn was ecstatic when she became pregnant by IVF. But a bizarre mix-up left her facing a cruel dilemma

Just before the nurses took her newborn baby from her for the final time, they asked Carolyn Savage if she would like them to make up a ‘bereavement box’ for her to take home.

She said she would — well aware that, in time, mementos of the all-too-short moments she had spent with baby Logan would help her come to terms with her loss.

Carolyn recalls watching a nurse hold one little foot while a clay imprint was made; then smiling, somehow, for photographs, as Logan lay on her chest. In all, she spent 45 minutes with her ‘feisty little man’.

Seventeen months on, Carolyn talks of the ‘bereavement process’, concluding that she and husband Sean ‘have done anger and denial and depression. I think we are kind of in acceptance now, but it’s not an altogether straight line’.

Anyone who has lost a child might feel they recognise the emotions the Savages are charting today. But they cannot possibly. For the tragedy is not that baby Logan is dead. He is just someone else’s son.

Logan was the result of an unthinkable IVF mix-up. Although Carolyn carried him for nine months, genetically he belonged to another couple….. Continue reading

Learn more about Carolyn & Sean’s  inconceivable choice in their recently published book Inconceivable