Premature Babies | L'il Aussie Prems Blog

PREM OF THE MONTH – JUNE

June 10, 2008 By Julia Toivonen Leave a Comment

Lily, Ruby, Maddie and their mum Lucinda

Where was Lily born?
Lily was born at the John Hunter Hospital, Newcastle. I was transferred there from North Gosford Private once they realized there were complications. We also spent a week in the Childrens Hospital at Westmead while she underwent cardiac surgery for a Patent Ductus Arteriosus.

What was her gestation and birthweight?
30 weeks and 1300 grams

Do you know why she was born premmie?
Lily had major complications in utero, in addition to the fact that I have an irritable uterus and my placenta started to fail, resulting in IUGR.

How long was Lily in hospital?
NICU for 1.5 months, SCN for 1.5 months. 3 months less one day all up. She came home weighing 2kg.

Other interesting stats?
CPAP for 24 days (due to PDA we just couldn’t get her off it!) then low flow oxygen for 6 months. She finally came off it on the 1st of March 2007.

What do you remember most about your NICU journey?
Now I mostly remember how fantastic the hospital staff were to me and my family and continue to be today. At the time it was so unbelievably hard you wouldn’t wish it on your worst enemy but the bad memories have faded with time and now we are just thankful that the wonderful doctors didn’t ever give up on our precious baby.

What has been your proudest moment since Lily came home?
Probably when she started walking. She has only just started in the last two weeks and we were told that she wouldn’t walk for a very long time. She continues to prove us all wrong with her strength and determination!

How did it feel to be pregnant again with a high risk of premature birth?
Terrifying! I really wanted to have the “normal” experience I had missed out on the first time around. But then as each day passed I began to prepare myself for another NICU or SCN journey.

At what gestation and weight were your twins born?
35 weeks, 1800 grams and 2400 grams

Any idea why they were born prem?
Maddie (the bigger twin) was hogging all the nutrients so Ruby developed IUGR. The doctors were concerned about how healthy she would be if she remained in utero so they booked me in for an emergency c-section. The day I went in to have them I ended up in labour! Both were born via c-section that day which was lucky as Ruby was badly tangled in her cord.

How did it feel to be back in the Special Care Nursery with your twins?
It was hard too, obviously not as hard as when Lily was born but I had to have my twins at a different hospital than the one I had had Lily at and having to learn the different processes really got to me. I guess in a way I felt I knew how to do it all so didn’t need someone making me do it a different way. The nurses were used to parents that were unsure of their tiny babies whereas my husband and I were confident and experienced with little our babies.

Also the hospital didn’t make any exceptions for the fact that my babies were in SCN. I was put in a ward with 5 other women and their babies and listened to their babies cry all night while mine were a 1km walk away (which I couldn’t do as I had had a bad c section). Because I didn’t have a screaming baby with me I was left to my own devices a lot, which also meant I could wait up to an hour to have a nurse just answer my call button.

One of the biggest challenges was having Lily as well. I lived at the hospital for 2 weeks until I could bring the twins home (weighing 1900 grams and 2500 grams) but I felt guilty as Lily wasn’t coping very well at home without me so there was that challenge too.

What is your top tip for other mothers of premmie babies?
I guess I could say try and “normalise” things as much as possible. So cuddle your baby/s as soon as you can and feed them, and bathe them and just love them, even if they feel tiny and fragile and you are scared to touch them in case you hurt them. They need to know you are there for them from the very beginning.

Filed Under: L'il Aussie Prems, Parenting, Premature Babies

Premmie Baby Health

June 10, 2008 By Julia Toivonen Leave a Comment

When you have a premature baby, suddenly you find yourself in an unfamiliar hospital environment where staff talk about medical conditions you may never have heard of before. L’il Aussie Prems is pleased to bring you a series of short articles which aim to explain some of the conditions which affect premature babies. You might find these overviews useful when you want to tell your friends and family about issues faced by your premature baby.
Remember that each baby is different, and you should always consult a medical professional about circumstances which relate specifically to your child.

Newborn Jaundice

What is it?
Jaundice is a yellow discolouration of the skin and the whites of the eyes caused by hyperbilirubinemia (which means increased levels of bilirubin in the blood). Jaundice occurs in both full term and premature newborn babies, but is much more common in premature babies.

Why does it occur?
In the human body, new blood cells are being made all the time and old blood cells die. Soon after a baby is born, its body will start replacing foetal haemoglobin (the blood used by the developing foetus which enables oxygen to be transported via the umbilical tube) with adult haemoglobin (normal blood). One of the products of blood as it breaks down is called bilirubin. Bilirubin is normally filtered by the liver and then leaves the body via a bowel movement.

Premature babies tend to develop jaundice because their livers are too immature to remove the bilirubin from their blood, so it builds up and spreads to other tissues in the body. This is also known as physiologic jaundice. Bilirubin is a yellowish colour, which is why the baby’s skin takes on a yellowish tint.

Jaundice can also be made worse in a small number of babies by certain health problems such as having a different blood type from the mother.

Why is it a problem?
Jaundice is not usually a serious problem, although premature infants may be more sensitive to the ill effects of excess bilirubin. Extremely high levels can be toxic, as bilirubin may enter the brain, causing hearing problems and brain damage. However babies in hospital are carefully monitored and treated quickly before their bilirubin reaches dangerous levels.

How is it treated?
Doctors use a blood test to check the bilirubin level.
Moderate jaundice is treated by placing your baby naked or near-naked (with a protective mask over the eyes) under a special white or a bluish-coloured light. This is called phototherapy and can be delivered in many different ways safely, including via the use of special fibre-optic bili-blankets. The light breaks down the bilirubin in the skin into a substance that the body can excrete more easily. Usually phototherapy is needed for about a week, and after that, the liver is mature enough to excrete bilirubin on its own.

In cases of severe jaundice where phototherapy is not effective, a baby may need to have a special blood transfusion in which their blood is replaced (exchanged) with donor blood to wash the bilirubin out of their system.

Are there any long term problems from jaundice?
There are usually no long-term problems following jaundice in babies. Babies who have had high levels of jaundice should have their hearing checked at regular intervals. This is best discussed with your doctor or early childhood nurse. Brain damage due to very high levels of jaundice is now extremely rare because the levels are carefully monitored while babies are in hospital.

Filed Under: L'il Aussie Prems, NICU Life, Premmie Baby Health Issues

Premature girls get more from breast milk

June 3, 2008 By Julia Toivonen Leave a Comment

Premature baby girls appear to get greater benefit from breastfeeding compared than premature baby boys, according to new research.

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University in the United States tracked a group of premature infants in Argentina to gauge the protective effect of breastfeeding against respiratory infections in babies.

The results of their research are published in this month’s edition of Pediatrics.

They found that infant girls who were breastfed were far less likely than baby boys who were breastfed to develop serious respiratory infections requiring hospitalisation.

Previous research has shown that breastfed babies receive a range of health benefits compared to those given baby formula.

These range from combating respiratory infections, fewer ear, stomach or intestinal infections, digestive problems, skin diseases and allergies.

“There are many, many different diseases that are protected against by breast-feeding. It’s a great source of nutrition,” Dr Fernando Polack of Johns Hopkins University says.

“In the specific case of acute respiratory diseases like bronchiolitis and viral infections of the respiratory tract, it seems that there is greater benefit in girls than in boys. And that benefit is substantial.”

Breathing easier

Bronchiolitis is an infection of the airways of the lungs seen most often in infants between about 3 and 6 months old.

The researchers studied a group of 119 high-risk infants who weighed under about 1.5 kilograms at delivery. This population is highly susceptible to these kinds of infections, Polack says.

Fifty per cent of the baby girls who were formula-fed had to be hospitalised when they experienced their first respiratory infection, compared to about 7 per cent of the girls who were breastfed, the researchers write.

There was no difference between the boys who were breastfed or formula-fed, with about 19 per cent of both groups needing hospitalisation when they got their first respiratory infection, the researchers said.

The pattern repeated throughout the first year of life and in subsequent infections, the researchers say.

Polack said there may be something in the breast milk that better activates a baby girl’s ability to cope with such infections more so than it does for a baby boy.

Article from ABC Science

Filed Under: Feeding (premature babies), Media Articles, Premmie Baby Health Issues

May 29, 2008 By trikiron Leave a Comment

Premature Baby Pre-Eclampsia Journey – 29wk severe IUGR premmie

This was such a beautiful video of premature baby born at KEMH hospital so i wanted to share. What a gorgeous little boy and he has done so well being born so small. His premature birth is an inspiration to many.

Filed Under: Premature Babies

Premature Babies Need Cuddles

May 29, 2008 By Julia Toivonen Leave a Comment

Cuddling up against their mother’s bare skin can help babies born as early as 28 weeks recover more quickly from the painful medical procedures, a new research suggests.

According to the Canadian study, very premature babies benefit from skin to skin contact with their parents. Writing in the journal BMC Pediatrics, the McGill University team said it might aid the recovery process.

This study is the first to look at extremely premature babies, born between 28 and 31 weeks. It was previously thought by some experts that such young babies were not developed enough to benefit from human touch.

A common test used in neonatal units is the “heel prick” blood test, which produces a sample, which can be used to check blood sugar levels.

This is inevitably painfill for the baby, and in some cases, it can take minutes for this distress to recede which could be a problem for a baby whose health is in the balance.

In the study researchers carried out the test on some babies who were being actively cuddled, skin-to-skin, measuring facial expressions, heart rate and blood oxygen levels to assess the amount of pain suffered.

Pain scores after 90 seconds for the cuddled babies were much lower than for those who were not cuddled. Half the cuddled babies did not show any facial expression of pain when undergoing a heel prick test. Lead researcher Celeste Johnston said that the shorter recovery time could help maintain the baby’s health.

“The pain response in very preterm neonates appears to be reduced by skin-to-skin maternal contact,” BBC quoted her, as saying. Professor Linda Franck, from the Institute of Child Health in London, said that parents were often not encouraged to have skin-to-skin contact with their premature babies in UK neonatal units, despite growing evidence that it could help.

She said: “Neonatal units can be very intimidating places, and parents often do not know the best way to get involved. Parents want to do the right thing, but the message is difficult to get out there.”

“This study suggests that, even for the very youngest premature babies, skin to skin contact can reduce the stress response.”

Article from

Filed Under: Media Articles, Premmie Baby Health Issues

Mothers Day

May 12, 2008 By Finisterre 1 Comment

Last year was my first Mothers Day.
It felt much like any other day in the weeks before or after it – trekking in to the hospital, reading the chart to see how much Talia weighed and how much milk she’d been fed, watching the nurses take care of my baby. It was hard sometimes to even feel that she was really mine, when all I could do was change the occasional nappy, express my milk via a machine and hope for a cuddle once a day or every second day. I worried about her, I shed plenty of tears.
Taking her home and leading a normal life seemed a distant dream.

Mothers Day 2007

This year it is the NICU which is a dream, dimmed by time but not forgotten.
Pictures of premature babies on the news bring tears to my eyes but for us, so much has taken place, so much has changed in a year. My beautiful daughter finally allowed to go home. Breastfeeding, settling, weigh-ins. First smiles, tummy time, growing out of clothes, starting solids. Sitting, rolling, turning the pages of a book. Our first birthday celebrations.

Another Mothers’ Day.
We shared it with my mothers’ group, holding a joint first birthday party for our babies, born between March 20 (Talia’s birthday) and June 22 (the day Talia left hospital) last year. I made party food, sewed a gift and helped decorate the venue. Yes I am a real mum – I can walk the walk (while pushing a pram) and talk the talk and have the t-shirt to prove it (almost certainly with baby food smeared onto it). I still worry and I still shed tears from time to time, and maybe I always will. It seems to be part and parcel of being a mother.

Mothers Day 2008