Being the mother of a premature baby can be tough. After spending your pregnancy looking forward to your little one's arrival, you can be left feeling a little shell shocked that things didn't go according to plan. You can be consumed with fear for what the future holds and find it difficult to adjust to the fact that you can’t bring your baby home straight away or pick them up to feed.
However, you can still look after them and bond in different ways:
Pump breast milk
If your baby is in an incubator and can’t come out, you can still give them breast milk by pumping. Some babies, while able to come out of their incubator, might not be able to breastfeed as they can struggle to latch on but ask the nurse if you can feed them yourself via the bottle. The more you do the closer you will feel to your infant.
Touch your baby
A premature baby is particularly tiny and some mums can be too frightened to touch them for fear of causing pain. It is important you do make the effort to hold your infant so that they can become used to your touch. Skin-on-skin contact is important and your baby’s nurse might encourage you to hold your little one on your bare chest. If holding them is not a possibility, gently put your hand through their incubator and touch their hand.
Communicate with the nurses
Babies born before the 40 week mark can be prone to complications including heart and breathing problems, so it is important you talk to the nurses so you are aware of what is going on. It can be hard to deal with issues on top of seeing your baby so small, but staying in the loop will mean you will have a better understanding of what’s going on and not be so frightened.
Look after yourself
A lot of mums of premature babies can suffer from feelings of guilt, sadness, grief at the loss of pregnancy they wanted, anger and fear. Don’t bottle any feelings up, share them with people you trust or a professional, and look after yourself - it is important you allow yourself time to heal as well as looking after baby, so take some time out.
