For a school assesment I am investigating premature babies and the health care requirements they need to help them catch up so to speek. Being a premature baby myself my mother has informed me of the physical, emotion and financial stress this adds to life so it would be great to get other opinions. Anything would be greatly appreciated. Feeling, facts anything. Thank you again
Entire books have been written on this subject. There is an ENTIRE branch of medicine which is this focus (Neonatalogy.) It is also a very broad subject, timewise. A 36 week gestation preterm baby is MUCH different than a 22 week gestation baby. Are you talking features, causes, treatments, feeding, growth patterns, medications, technology, breathing technology, GI medicine? Too much to cover on one thread. I think a websearch, and some books from a medical libray would be your best bet. This subject is SO large, no one could even start to address it, without the subject being more specific here, right now.
I have lots of information but i am in need of primary research so first hand accounts is what i need. I would like thoughts from a mothers prospeective as it have been 18 yrs since my mother went through it. In casual terms the description of how it felt not to be able to hold your child straight away.......the things the doctor said to help the baby catch up....e.t.c., from a mothers point of view......sometimesyou just need it in plain terms not from a medical pointof view
Okay, my twins, a boy and a girl, were born at 36 weeks gestation, weighing in at 4 pounds 11.8 ounces and 4 pounds 12 ounces which was actually good for twins, but my daughter had to be placed in the NICU. I had had my son vaginally, but my daughter was taken by cesarean due to an ultrasound showing that she was breech (they tried to manually turn her) and that her umbilical cord was very close to her neck. When they went to take her out, they found that her placenta had become prematurely detached and her sac was full of blood clots. When they removed her, she was not breathing and they had to perform rescue breathing on her to revive her. Thank goodness she was alright, but she had to be taken to the NICU. I was able to hold her for maybe a full minute before they took her from me luckily, but after that, I was unable to hold her for nearly a week because I myself ended up in the ICU with major complications. When I myself was in the ICU, the NICU nurses schemed to wheel my daughter down to me so that I could look at her, and I was able to reach my hand through the side of her incubator to touch her briefly. But after that, it was almost a week before I really got to see or hold her again. The NICU scared me. My daughter was laying there with little tubes coming out of her, machines beeping, and I just wanted to cry. I felt so detached from her. I was afraid to hold her even. She looked so tiny and frail. I felt like a horrible mother because I didn't want to be there. Not that I didn't want to be with her, just that it was difficult being there. I was also trying to recover myself, and I had her twin brother and also an older son at home. I was going home with them and then coming back for her feedings, and I was exhausted. My husband seemed to take it all in stride and was super strong for all of us thank goodness. He was a pro. Our daughter was in the NICU for almost 3 weeks, so it wasn't all that long compared to many other babies. But that brief amount of time was very emotionally draining. The hospital bills from her treatment were outrageous as well. Then, my twin son began having problems. He began having episodes where he appeared to be having seizures. He was put into the hospital and hooked up for an EEG, but they didn't find anything. A few days later, the episodes started up again, even worse than before. He was admitted to the hospital again and hooked up for a 24 hour video EEG. They found that he had Sleep Myoclonus, a disorder in which his muscles would spasm during the R.E.M. stage of sleep, and believed to possibly be an effect of an immature neorological system. If that wasn't enough, not long after that they detected a murmur in his heart and found that he had a small hole. He is checked yearly at this point by a cardiologist, but thankfully he feels that the hole will close. In fact, we're due for a cardiologist appointment any time now again. I can't even begin to describe the fear I had for my babies. I can't even tell you how hard it was to see them go through so many tests, to see them hooked up to machines, wires everywhere. I get choked up just thinking about it. But besides their rough start, the two of them are doing beautifully. They met all of their major milestones on time and haven't had any difficulties. They're both HUGE now, and you would never even guess that they had been preemies.
