Read the inspirational stories of courage and fight for survival from these amazing premature babies born at 27 weeks gestation throughout Australia including advice from their parents.
Premmie Babies Name: Emma
Gestation Born: 27 weeks
Weight When Born: 510 grams
Length When Born: 27 cm
Current Age: 3.5 years
Current Weight Now: 10.9kg
Babies Outlook/Ongoing Issues: The outlook for Emma is fantastic. She is a normal little girl who is just small for her age. She is an asthmatic due to her lungs – but that is easily managed.
The only issue she faces is severe food aversion and extreme hyper-sensitivity. She is still bottle-fed as she does not ANY solid food at all. Her bottles are a special formula which provides her with nutrients and calories to help her grow. Due to her lack of diet she does tend to get ill constantly. We work very closely with a speech therapist (her speech is advanced but they also work with children who have eating disorders), an OT, a dietician and her paed. She has an excellent support network around her.
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Premmie Babies Name: Charlie
Gestation Born: 27 weeks 6 days
Weight When Born: 618 g or 1 pd 5 1/2 ounces
Length When Born: not recorded..we guessed about 30cm
Current Age: 29 1/2 Months
Current Weight Now: 10 kg
Babies Outlook/Ongoing Issues: Charlie is doing fantastic and we have been so blessed that he has had few issues requiring any intervention. We hope we continue to be blessed that way. His main problems to date were low trunk tone meaning he was a late sitter, he is also petite and struggles to gain weight. He has had some speech delay also but is making big gains in that area.
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Premmie Babies Name: Ronan Nils
Gestation Born: 27+3 weeks
Weight When Born: 1140 grams
Length When Born: 37.5cms
Current Age: 3.5yrs
Current Weight Now: 16kgs
Babies Outlook/Ongoing Issues:Ronan has attended physio for low muscle tone until he started walking. He was diagnosed with Sensory Integration problems at 2 years old and has been attending early intervention since then. He has come a long way and is a totally different child. His speech is delayed but we are waiting for grommets which hopefully will help. He is a gorgeous little man who eats like a horse, placid and overall very happy and cheeky.
Advice From Parents: Talking to other parents certainly does help also joining forums where you can chat at your leisure from home connects you with other families. Take heaps of pictures and either keep a diary or start a blog!
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Premmie Babies Name: Arielle Grace
Gestation Born: 27 + 1 weeks
Weight When Born: 605 grams
Length When Born: 36 cms
Current Age: 13 months
Current Weight Now: 7.5kg
Babies Outlook/Ongoing Issues: Arielle is a happy and contented baby and is thrieving despite her premmie start to life. She is very active and social and enjoys ‘bopping’ along to music and songs with her mum and dad. Arielle has had 2 lots of laser eye surgery for ROP but has received positive reports from the eye clinic so far in her recovery. She does have an a-stigmatism in her right eye which she has unfortunately inherited from her mother and grandfather (nothing to do with the ROP).
Advice From Parents: My piece of advice would be to take one day at a time and record the little achievements that your son/daughter makes (every gram is worth celebrating in the early days)! Its amazing how the time will eventually pass and it will one day make for an interesting/emotional discussion with your child as to the journey they and you went through. Its also a constant reminder of how special and precious our little fighting prems are!
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Premmie Babies Name: Elisha
Gestation Born: 27+6 weeks
Weight When Born: 915 grams
Length When Born: 30 cms
Current Age: 12 months (9 corrected)
Current Weight Now: 10kg
Babies Outlook/Ongoing Issues: Our 4th child decided to break my waters at 21 weeks. After a mercy dash to Perth we made it to 27 weeks. She had a long time on Cpap and after discharge from kemh, we ended back in Pmh 4 times with Apnea related issues and for a double hernia op. She is 9 months corrected and it all seems like a dream. She is a fat, happy baby who is crawling and is very social.She has a touch of chronic lung disease, but she sounds clearer as every day passes. It gets easier!!
Advice From Parents: The best advice I can give to parents going through this is: Be with your baby as much as you can, it helps you feel like you are contributing to their progress in the NICU. It is a very lonely time with you feeling like the world truelly doesnt understand what you are going through as a family.The nurses are your best place to turn. They are fabulous human beings who know this scenario inside out. I learnt something else too… you cannot BOSS the situation around, your baby will do everything in their OWN time, just be patient and and know that this year will end and it will seem like a dream.. I promise you that.
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Premmie Babies Name: Eleanor Mary Rapley
Gestation Born: 27wks 6 days
Weight When Born: 1278gms
Length When Born: 40cm
Current Age: 4yrs 5mths
Current Weight Now: 15kg
Babies Outlook/Ongoing Issues: Eleanor has just started kindy this year. She is a very determined, strong, bubbly, energetic little girl. The determination she has had from the minute she was born. She is slightly smaller than other girls her age, but is very lucky to have had no ongoing health issues.
Advice From Parents: Eleanor was due on Christmas Eve. Coming so early, so unexpectedly, Christmas would have been the last thing on our minds. But we held onto the hope and were determined we would be going home as a family to spend our first Christmas together. Everyday, we walked into the SCN smiling, our little girl was alive, and we felt (or hoped) Eleanor would sense our positive energy and determined outlook.
Try and be positive, try and smile, we did, and our baby girl was discharged 3 weeks before her due date. We spent Christmas at home as a family.
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Premature Babies Name: Emily
Gestation Born: 27+4 weeks
Weight When Born: 1065grams
Length When Born: 35cm
Current Age: 3.5yrs
Current Weight Now: 14.5kg
Babies Outlook/Ongoing Issues: Emily spent 100 days in the NICU & came home without oxygen but was put on oxygen at 11 mths of age due to failure to thrive, pulmonary hypertension, suspected chronic lung disease & a small (or so they thought) PDA. At 18 mths she had her very large PDA surgically closed but she is left with severe pulmonary hypertension & maybe on oxygen for life.
Advice From Parents: Remember ‘baby steps for babies’ & take each day as it comes. It will be a journey full of ups & downs that most of your friends & family wont be able to understand. Take comfort, support & courage from other families in the NICU & prem support organisations.
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Premature Babies Name: Elisha
Gestation Born: 27 weeks
Weight When Born: 870gms
Length When Born: 40cm
Current Age: 12 months
Current Weight Now: 8 kg
Babies Outlook/Ongoing Issues: For a baby born ar 27 weeks we have been very lucky – no health problems/ I was 46 years old when she was born and thinking I was going through early Menopause did not consider being pregnant so no testing done. Pregnancy confirmed at 24 weeks and she was born 3 weeks later due to pre eclampsia. My 4th daughter – my others being 22 yrs, 19 yrs and 18 yrs old.
Advice From Parents: Ask questions all the time about what is being done to your baby. Try and form a good relationship with your babies nurse/s and doctors they will give you great support!
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Premature Babies Name: Aaron
Gestation Born: 27 weeks gestation
Weight When Born: 1120 grams
Length When Born: Wasn’t recorded
Current Age: nearly 4yrs old
Current Weight Now: 22kg / 115cm tall
Babies Outlook/Ongoing Issues: We have been very lucky as he only spent 9 days in nicu and 11 weeks in scn. he has gone from strength to strength the only thing that he has required due to his prematurity is glasses.He has meet all milestones on time if not earlier we couldnt be more grateful for the wonderful work the drs and nurses do so thankyou.
Advice From Parents: For us we always tried to remain positive and try not to become to overwhelmed and remember you need to rest too to be strong for whatever may come.
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