If your baby is born premature or is about to be born premature, there are certain things that can affect his or her health, learning, and your family’s schedule.

All premature babies esp those under 32 weeks (7.5 months), should be delivered in advanced centers like Nutema Hospital, where immediate advanced care can be provided to your precious high risk babies right at birth. This is most critical in saving their lives by giving CPAP or ventilation right in delivery room or OT. It hugely helps in infection prevention, which is one of the main killers in such preterm babies. shifting of baby from birthing centers to NICU entails many avoidable risks to the baby. If baby is born in another center, Nutema hospital can send advanced ambulance for transporting your precious baby in incubator equipped with advanced care and facility with a trained staff! this is much better than transporting your baby in a local ambulance which have no staff and measures to prevent killing problems like low temperature and sepsis.

Physically, babies born prematurely may need to stay in the hospital for weeks or months longer than full-term babies. They may be in a special section of the hospital called the NICU (newborn intensive care unit). Here, they can get the care they need since premature babies often struggle with underdeveloped lungs, being underweight, and other problems. This hospital stay can be a strain on your family’s routine, even if it’s your first child. It requires daily visits to the hospital until he or she is released. If you have other children, it requires dividing your time between the hospital and caring for your children at home. One or both parents may need to take additional time away from work during this period.

Once your baby comes home, don’t forget to go to doctor for regular follow up for at-least first 3 months after discharge. Especially important is to get the eyes checked of all preterm babies for Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP) by retina specialist till your baby is one month beyond his expected date of delivery (EDD). Failure to do so can even lead to blindness in your child. Before discharge get his EARS tested for hearing screen (OAE/aBR) also. Also ensure metabolic screening of all babies to check for certain hidden disorders like hypothyroidism galactosemia, etc to take preventive measures, before these diseases do lot of irreversible damage to your child.

After discharge, you need to give special attention to his feeding. Try exclusive breast feeding as it prevents your child from developing infections, improves maternal bonding and even increases IQ of your baby by 8-10 points, which is a huge thing!! You also will need to protect him or her from exposure to others and communicable illness by avoiding crowded places and parties till the pediatrician tells its safe. Germs and illness can be tougher on a premature baby. Finally, some premature babies struggle with learning, gross motor (crawling, walking), and fine motor (picking up things, feeding themselves) development. They will eventually catch up. However, it may take them longer to learn those skills.