A Guiding Hand for Families in NICU and Special Care Nurseries - Digital - Book - Page 60
Feeding your premature or sick baby
Parent Story:
Amy and Samuel
Our second baby arrived under the most terrifying
of circumstances. I was 39 weeks pregnant and my
usually active son hadn’t moved for several hours. I
had been diagnosed as isoimmunised – a condition
where a blood incompatibility exists between mother
and baby, resulting in an immune response in which the
mother’s antibodies can cross the placenta and destroy her
baby’s red blood cells.
A blood test indicated the baby had anaemia and suddenly we were
living one of the most serious scenarios we had been warned was
possible. Sam was delivered quickly by emergency caesarean. He was
a horrifying grey colour because he had severe Haemolytic Disease of
the Newborn (HDN) – he was severely anaemic and jaundiced.
I held him for only a few moments before he was whisked away for
an exchange transfusion where the entire body contents of blood
is slowly replaced with donor blood before he was transported to a
hospital that had the facilities to treat him. Due to my emergency
caesarean, I was unable to go with Sam. It was one of the hardest
experiences of my life to be away from my baby when he was so tiny
and unwell. I still expressed breastmilk every three hours as it was all I
could do for him in that moment.
The maternity unit nurses organised for me to visit Sam in the NICU
when he was three days old. He was wearing a protective eye
mask under bright blue lights with a CPAP tube in his nose and his
arms bandaged to keep his medication tubes in. The NICU team
encouraged me to feed him using a syringe and helped me to change
and lightly dress him.
Sam quickly progressed from the NICU to the SCN, back
to the SCN at the hospital where he was born and finally
home.
Today, he is a towering ten-year-old. He is a constantly
moving, busy, active boy, who loves his family, his hobbies
and his friends. At the end of the day, everything turned out
OK. Our experience with Sam might not be how we expected
or planned, and certainly not what we had envisaged for him, but
nothing in life is guaranteed, and that’s OK too.
Life’s Little Treasures Foundation | Supporting Families of Premature & Sick Babies
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