Welcome to the L’il Aussie Prems Blog.
The L’il Aussie Prems blog is written and maintained by 5 mothers of prematurely born babies.
Here you will find personal stories about real premature babies and their families, their health and developmental milestones, as well as media articles relating to premature babies, information about general parenting and parenting of premature babies, the success of the L’il Aussie Prems website, poems, rants, anecdotes and more…
A NATIONAL organisation to support families with babies born prematurely was launched last weeks thanks to a dedicated and computer savvy-mum.
Julia Toivonen, 28, of Wantirna, worked solely on the National Premmie Foundation website – www.prembaby.org.au – and finished it last Thursday. The foundation was formed by six groups, including Melbourne’s Lifes Little Treaures, which Mrs Toivonen represents.
She also created the LLT website – www.lifeslittletreasures.org.au - and is in charge of maintaining the sites. She said the NPF would provide valuable support to families across Australia. “NPF will help people form their own support groups, provide information and interesting articles for parents to read, and raise funds for important research.”
Mrs Toivonen said many families caring for children with special needs were not aware that help was available. She knows only too well the difficulties a family faces after her son, Ronan, was born prematurely 18 months ago. He spent 100 days in hospital and had many complications, including chronic lung disease.
Crawling and walking are milestones in a child’s life, but for Ronan each one has proved a challenge. “He can crawl, but he can’t walk without something to hold onto”. The young battler has just started being able to sit comfortably after regular physiotherapy sessions.
Throughout her son’s development, she became motivated to help people in a similar situation and started a group called L’il Aussie Prems eight months ago. She also created a website dedicated to Ronan with pictures and updates on his progress.
He might not be able to walk unaided until he is two, but Mrs Toivonen has learnt to be patient.
Written by Will Wright – The Knox Journal
Something is wrong i said to my husband Mark, 29 as searing pain ripped through me. “I think the baby is coming”. It was mid March 2006 and i was pregnant with my first child, but at only 27 weeks along we weren’t expecting our bundle of joy just yet. But it didn’t really matter if we were ready or not because the very next morning our son, Ronan, was born prematurely.
Nothing could have prepared us for this sudden arrival… or the length hospital stay that ensued. Poor Ronan spent the next 110 days at Monash Medical Centre in Melbourne with chronic lung disease and other complications. It was a very difficult time for Mark and I. As my family lived in Sydney, I found a lot of our time was taken up calling relatives to keep them updated on Ronan’s progress. I’m going to start a web journal, i said to Mark. That way our family and friends can log on at any time to see how Ronan is doing. I got started and found the process quite therapeutic. www.totsites.com/tot/ronantoivonen
I was a long-time user of the internet. In fact that was how Mark and i met and we’d been together for eight years and married for three. As well as recording Ronan’s day-to-day progress, i began gathering information about premature births. I was shocked to discover there was very little information available for Aussie parents of premmie babies. There were plenty of overseas websites, but the majority of information and links were of no use to Australian parents.
`There’s not enough support for Aussie parents of prems’ i said to Mark after Ronan left hospital. `So i’m going to start a website just for them’. Several months later and i’d created my website, L’il Aussie Prems, at www.lilaussieprems.com.au. I loaded it up with all the information that i’d been searching for when dealing with Ronan’s premature birth. And i must have hit a chord, because it’s become a huge success. The forum has been particularly popular as it allows parents and family members to discuss issues and ask questions. I’ve been working extremely hard to get the word out and i’m so proud that Australian parents of premmie bubs now have a website that’s got all the information they need.
Article from issue #41 – That’s Life Magazine.
L’il Aussie Prems is a sponsor of the National Premmie Foundation which is being launched in October at the Pregnancy, Babies & Children’s Expo here in Victoria. I am apart of the foundation as i am a committee member for Lifes Little Treasures who are just a beautiful group of women. I am creating the foundations website as we speak and having alot of fun doing so. A representative from each of the 6 founding groups were flown up to Sydney overnight back in August to attend a two day meeting on how we were going to progress with starting the foundation. We had a fantastic time and spoke to great lengths about the foundation, rules, aims, visions and we all walked away feeling very overloaded with information.
We have all been working together really well and i am so proud to say that through me L’il Aussie Prems is a sponsor of the foundation. I represent Lifes Little Treasures when it comes to foundation tasks.
The foundation is made up from 6 groups, Loddon Mallee Kids, Lifes Little Treasures, PIPA, NICCUPS, Little Wonders & NNPSNS which is a new group formed on the NSW Central Coast.
Our aims are;
To act as a parent body, guiding and assisting prem support groups by helping to:
This is a fantastic new journey we are all excited to be on and i wish the NPF all the success in the world.
Myself and L’il Aussie Prems are going to be featured in issue 41 of That’s Life Magazine 2007. I am so excited as the story is a little about our journey but also about LAP in the hope that more parents and families with premature babies will join the forum for the support and also to talk about their little babies.
Once i have a copy of the article i will post a picture.
L’il Aussie Prems was created by Julia Toivonen, mum to a premature baby born at 27 weeks gestation. Through her experience of having a premature baby Julia wanted to reach out to parents and offer support and understanding whether parents are still in the NICU or at home.
Each premature baby has their own life battling experiences. Some will have a harder battle than others, and it can be a constant struggle for the families of a premature baby. Learning to live the next few months or even years at hospital waiting for their precious premmie(s) to grow big and strong before they can come home can be a lonely experience, let alone trying to function with other aspects of normal life. And this experience can be equally draining on other families members of a premmie parent.
Julia is actively involved in the premature baby community and attends morning teas at different venue’s to meet parents and their babies. She has recently joined the committee for Life’s Little Treasures, a
L’il Aussie Prems hopes to encourage everyone to share their journey and offer a message of hope and support to help parents. We hope to support you through those hard times, from the early days in hospital to the growing years.
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