I have a special place in my heart for rainbow babies. My own son is a rainbow baby, I am a rainbow baby and my middle sister was a rainbow.

"I know that I did everything I could at that time to help bring our girl into the world."

I was born on October 25, 1956. My timing was a bit off; I wasn’t expected until the second week in December, a sort of early Christmas present from the stork. Instead, I was an early birthday pres…

A complete guide to visiting Kotor, Montenegro including things to see and do, where to stay, the best restaurants to eat at, and more!

Until we meet again, little one.

So sweet!

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If this is the first time you have heard this suggestion, you are probably thinking either that I've just landed from another planet; or am some radical, hippified, Neo-Luddite who has clearly lost it. Not true, honest! As this is a rather large topic due to it's impact on many different areas -I thought I might tackle it over more than one blog post, with this being an introduction to. So it's mainly aimed at those not too familiar with the concept of using mothers instead of incubators - often called Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) which includes Skin to Skin (STS) Let's start by jumping back to pre-incubators. Premature baby care was at this time poor; the majority of infants were born at home, often without a doctor readily available. Preemies were just considered "weak" babies, and as a result many were considered too small to survive. In general doctors were "in no position to extend their direct responsibility for the newborn", so perhaps not surprisingly death rates were as high as 85%. Around the turn of the 20th century, America's first incubator hospitals for premature infants were built. Alexandre Lion had developed the first incubator suitable for hospital use; but they were complicated, expensive, and the technology was hard to sell to hospitals. To get round this Lion displayed the incubators and their premature residents at fairs and amusement parks, charging an admission fee to offset the cost of running the equipment. Survival rates soared; in part because of the clean, warm environment and appropriate medical care - but also because after seeing the techniques used at the hospitals, parents were better able to care for their own premature infants. Incubator hospitals challenged many of the social norms of the time, but ultimately were designed to make a very large profit. From this point, research surrounding vulnerable infants, (and the development of incubators) was based on one fundamental assumption; that the incubator was the best way to care for a premature or sick infant. Today developments are still constantly underway to try and create an ever more womb like environment; controlling oxygen levels and other vital systems, with an array of sensors, monitors and alarms. Nowadays they are highly advanced pieces of equipment, costing in the region of £30,000. But what if this initial assumption was wrong? What if the whole foundation was based upon an assumption that was massively flawed? What if, creating a womb like environment wasn't the optimum way to care for a baby that had been born and something else could increase survival rates more? Dr Nils Bergman has been researching, practising and lecturing on KMC for twenty years and firmly believes an infant should not be separated from his mother. What Bergman discovered is that separation causes something called the "protest - despair response"; the protest response is one of intense activity seeking reuniting, the despair response that follows, is a withdraw and survive response - temperature and heart rate decrease, caused by a massive rise in stress hormones. When reunited with mother, there is conversley a rapid rise in heart rate and temperature. The "protest-despair response" was first described in human orphans after WWII, and was subsequently studied in monkeys and then in many other mammals. "Separation distress calls" have been documented in rats and very similar distress calls have been identified in human infants. Cot babies make ten times as many cry signals as babies held skin to skin, and Bergman believes there is not only physical but neurological implications to separating the dyad. There is compelling evidence a baby should be with mum, and that in fact she is the perfect incubator. The infant's temperature sits within a very narrow range, because mum's core temperature rises and fall as her baby requires - so much so STS has been proven better than an incubator for rewarming hypothermic infants. KMC has also been shown to improve oxygenation, to the extent that STS is used successfully to treat respiratory distress. Baby's breathing becomes regular, stable, and is coordinated with heart rate. Despite all this, KMC is not about shunning technology; on the contrary all the usual modern technological equipment should be used alongside the mother. It is purely about keeping mum and baby as one unit. Isn't this risky? is the first question people ask. The fact is that in over seventy studies. not a single adverse outcome has been reported for KMC. On the contrary, time and again KMC infants have improved outcome over traditional methods of care - something widely recognised in available scientfic literature. Why isn't it practised? is usually the next. But, as I promised to keep this a short introduction - I think that's for another blog entry!

This listing is for a PREEMIE OR NEWBORN THOR CAPE AND MASK SET. This set is offered in the following sizes: Preemie - 2-3 lbs Preemie - 3-5 lbs Newborn - 6-9 lbs This handmade set is the perfect baby shower gift, a great Halloween Costume and also an excellent photography prop. This set is crocheted with acrylic blends that are extremely soft for baby. *****I take great pride in my craft using only the best yarn and I promise you will be 100% satisfied with my work. ******* Care Instructions ************ I recommend all of my handmade crochet items to be hand washed and placed flat to dry. ************************************** If you would be interested in this item in a different color or size please feel free to send me a custom order message & I would love to work with you to customize the perfect piece for you. **************************************** If you can dream it I can crochet it. Custom orders are my specialty so feel free to send me a message. ************************************** Please contact me with any questions! ************************************ Please view my shop for other Superhero cape options. I would like to give a special thank you to Maria Thompson Photography for the photographs used in this listing. She is located in the Cincinnati, Ohio area. You can view her work on Facebook and contact her at mhthompson55 [!at] gmail.com

Saybie came into the world breaking the record for worl'd tiniest preemie and she's been breaking records ever since.

Whenever someone asks me how old Amaliah is, I don't know what to say. She was born at 30 weeks, but she is actually 12 days old. Every doctor and nurse in the NICU will say she's 32 weeks, because they need to know her actual age as to when she was conceived so that they know where her physical development is at. This way they know how to treat her and what's expected of her now. I like to know this age too because I know as we get closer to 40 is when we get to go home. Amaliah gets physical therapy twice a week where the therapist checks her reflexes, I saw her today and she said our baby is doing good, she's doing what she's expected to do. She mentioned her "rooting" skills are good, I asked what that meant and she said rooting is when the baby's mouth is stroked or touched and they turn their head and open their mouth to follow and "root" in the direction of the stroking. This helps the baby find the breast or bottle to begin feeding. I was happy to hear that. So far I have been pumping my milk for her, every 3-5 hours... it gets a little tiring, but to be able to start breastfeeding would be awesome! So I asked the doctor when Amaliah would be ready to start trying and they said she could start practicing and we did! Amaliah knew exactly what to do, it's amazing how God equips them with all these instincts of survival. We only practiced for a few minutes, she's not ready for real feeding yet, they said at 34 weeks is usually when babies are able to coordinate sucking, breathing and swallowing. So for now it's just a practice until she's ready. It will be great to see that little tube in her nose go away! Amaliah's weight is getting better too. She gained weight, she's at 2lbs. 9oz. so, a little over her birth weight, but considering she had to lose weight before she could start gaining, this is a good number. They told us they were going to start adding a fortifier to my milk to add calories so she can gain weight faster, and they started that yesterday. We are just waiting for her to start getting some fat on those skinny bones of her! Cada vez que alguien me pregunta la edad de Amaliah no sé qué decir. Ella nació de 30 semanas, pero en realidad tiene 12 días de edad. Todos los médicos y enfermeras del NICU dicen que su edad es de 32 semanas porque necesitan saber su edad en cuanto a cuando fue concebida para saber como se encuentra su desarrollo físico. De esta manera saben como tratarla y lo que se espera de ella. Me gusta saber esta edad también porque sé que mientras más nos acerquemos a las 40 semanas, más se acerca el día en que nos podremos ir a casa. Amaliah recibe terapia física dos veces a la semana en la que la terapeuta revisa sus reflejos. Hoy la vi y me dijo que nuestra bebé va bien, sus reflejos están donde deberían estar. Ella mencionó su habilidad de "búsqueda" y le pregunté a lo que se refería y me dijo que el reflejo de búsqueda es cuando la boca del bebé se acaricia o toca y el bebé entonces gira la cabeza y abre la boca para seguir y "buscar" en la dirección de la caricia. Esto ayuda al bebé a encontrar el pecho o el biberón para alimentarse. Me dio gusto escuchar eso. Hasta ahora he estado "bombeando" mi leche para ella, cada 3-5 horas...es algo cansado, pero poder empezar a amamantar seria muy bueno! Así que le pregunte a la doctora cuando Amaliah estaría lista para intentar darle pecho y me dijeron que podía empezar a practicar y lo hicimos! Amaliah sabía exactamente que hacer, es increíble como Dios los equipa con esos instintos de supervivencia. Solo practicamos unos minutos, todavía no esta lista para una lactancia real, dijeron que a las 34 semanas es usualmente cuando los bebés son capaces de coordinar mejor el succionar, respirar y tragar. Así que por ahora es solo una practica hasta que esté lista. Será muy bueno ver ese tubito de su nariz fuera! El peso de Amaliah también va mejorando. Subió a 1.3kg, un poco más de su peso al nacer, pero teniendo en cuenta que tenía que bajar de peso antes de que pudiera comenzar a subir, este es un buen número. Nos dijeron que iban a empezar a añadir un fortificante a mi leche para agregar calorías para que suba de peso mas rápido, lo cual empezaron a hacer ayer. Solo estamos esperando a que la pequeña comience a engordar esos huesitos flaquitos que tiene!

Scared of the NICU? Not sure what challenges you need to face and how to overcome them? What will be your role as a NICU parent? Look for more details here.

When do preemies wear clothes in the NICU and the must have NICU baby clothes

Dear NICU Parent, First off, congratulations on your newest blessing! While the world around you may seem hectic, confusing, and troubling, take a moment to stop and look into those beautiful eyes and realize what an amazing gift of life is lying right in front of you. Your perfect miracle is final