What Not to Say to a NICU Mum – 9 Things to Avoid
Having had two premature babies, each needing weeks of neonatal care, I thought I was just about qualified to write a list of what not to say to a NICU mum or dad. Hopefully this will help if you have a friend or family member who is going through this tough experience. 1. “When will you get home?” This is a tricky one to answer. Do you mean when will I get home or do you mean when will baby get home, because the chances are I will get home much sooner than baby. In the worst cases, mum and dad might not actually be sure baby is going to…
Harris’ Arrival – Having A Premature Baby During A Global Pandemic
Having a premature baby is hard, but having one during a global pandemic was on another level. Harris arrived 9 weeks early. He just had to do one better than his big brother by arriving even earlier and during the coronavirus pandemic. During my pregnancy with Dylan, I developed pre-eclampsia which led to him being born ahead of schedule. This meant that when I was pregnant with Harris, I had extra monitoring and was seen by the consultant throughout my pregnancy. Aside from a bit of sickness early on and some back/hip pain as the pregnancy progressed, my blood pressure was behaving and everything seemed to be going really well…
Challenges of Breastfeeding a Premmie
The Plan Dylan was born 6 weeks early. I’ve always wanted to breastfeed and during my pregnancy read numerous books and browsed countless websites looking for breastfeeding advice. I was always expecting the first few weeks to be difficult – all the books tell you that it will be – but nothing prepared me for how hard it would be to breastfeed a baby born as early as Dylan was. I’d always imagined that as soon as my baby was born, he would be placed on my chest for skin to skin and would start breastfeeding within a few hours of birth. That’s the way all of the books tell…
Ahead of Schedule
Welcome to the World Introducing our little Dylan James. July 10th 2018 5lb 0.5oz 45cm long Labour Dylan arrived 6 weeks early when I was just 34 weeks, 2 days pregnant. I’d been in and out of hospital for the month beforehand with high blood pressure and some symptoms of pre-eclampsia. I spent the Saturday night before Dylan arrived in hospital and as I was leaving on Sunday was told that I would likely be induced at 36 weeks. However, Dylan had other ideas and my waters broke at 3.30am on Tuesday 10th July. The day before my hypnobirth classes were due to start – typical (although at least we’d…
