Prematurity Awareness Month

Mom goes into labor, Dad drives her to the hospital. Anywhere from minutes to hours to days later, with anything from needles to birthing balls to scalpels in between, a baby is born. The baby cries, the baby lays on mom's chest. The mom gives the baby to the nurses to be cleaned and measured and weighed and given an APGAR score. The nurses hand the baby back to mom. Mom and Dad smile at their child, kiss their child, cuddle their child, feed their child. Mom and Dad and Baby move to the recovery floor. For two or three days, Mom and Dad and Baby figure out feeding, change lots of diapers, receive visitors and try to sleep. Then they all check out of the hospital, Dad brings the car around, Mom puts the baby in the carseat and they all drive home to start life as a newly minted threesome, foursome, fivesome, or more.

Mom goes into labor, Dad drives her to the hospital. It's too soon. Usually minutes rather than hours later, with anything from tears to terror to stoic acceptance in between, a baby is born. Sometimes the baby cries, but usually not. The baby is taken immediately from Mom to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, the NICU. The baby, rather than being cuddled and kissed and fed, will be given oxygen through a CPAP and have needles poked into her veins. Instead of being fed, she'll get an I.V. Her first sounds won't be coos or "I love you" or songs. They'll be the rushing sounds of medical professionals trying to preserve life and the loud alarms from monitors that signal whether or not the medical professionals are succeeding. Dad will wait outside the door of the NICU until the baby is stable enough for a doctor or nurse to leave and tell him it's okay to look at his baby now. A discussion will be had on whether or not the baby will be staying at this hospital, or if the baby is too small, too sick, too premature and must be moved to a bigger hospital that is likely hours away from her parents. Mom, who has been doing all the recovery things that must be done after a birth, has been moved into a postpartum room. Right next door to the moms who have their chubby, healthy babies in their arms. Mom is finally able to go visit her baby, hours after she's been born. If she's lucky, Mom will be able to gently touch her baby. Not hold, not even stroke her skin. But Mom and Dad can gently press fingers to their child through holes in a plastic box that is their child's home. In two or three days, Mom will check out of the hospital. Dad will bring the car around, and she will get in by herself. Mom and Dad will drop off their belongings, turn around and go straight back to the hospital, where Mom and Dad and Baby will spend the next weeks or months. And this is all only if Mom and Dad and Baby are one of the lucky premature birth families.

I don't want to be shocking, or just attention grabbing here. I want to give you a comparison of births. I want you to understand why I think that premature birth is something worth talking about, because talking about it helps prevent it.

How does talking about it help prevent it? The last time we were in the NICU, a teenage girl came in 26 weeks pregnant and 9 centimeters dilated. She hadn't told her family she was pregnant. Now, I know that there were hundreds of bad decisions that brought that girl and her baby to that place, but maybe if she had heard what premature birth was like, she would have made different decisions. Or maybe the thousands of women who go to the hospital for premature labor due to dehydration every year would just drink more water if they saw it on TV.

Here is a list of symptoms of preterm labor, and here is a list of possible causes and this is how to prevent and treat it. Please feel free to link to this blog to pass the word around, especially to your pregnant friends. November is Prematurity Awareness Month, and it seems as good a time as any to reduce the amount of premature births.