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"It can be hard to cope" - Ireland wants parents of premature babies to get heavily involved in their care

A new guide for parents of pre-term children is to be launched today in Dublin.

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A NEW GUIDE being launched today attempts to best advise parents as to how to cope with having a baby born prematurely.

Of all the unforeseen events that can befall a pregnancy, prematurity is one of those least discussed. Yet, worldwide, one in 10 babies will be born prematurely. More than 4,500 premature babies are born in Ireland each year.

Better Together: A Family-Centred Care Guide for your Premature Baby will be officially launched today by Health Minister Simon Harris at a medical symposium at the Davenport Hotel in Dublin. That symposium has been put in place to celebrate the 8th annual World Prematurity Day.

It has been drafted by the Irish Neonatal Health Alliance (INHA) to help parents in such a situation “to take a more active role in the neonatal situation” during their baby’s time in hospital.

“Some women will know nothing of premature babies, some will know too much perhaps, it’s about striking a balance but this is a way of encouraging empowerment for parents who may have felt helpless, and it can only help their baby,” says Professor Afif El Khuffash, consultant neonatologist at the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin.

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Prematurity: the facts

Some things you may not know about premature births:

  • Any baby born before 37 weeks (39 weeks being the ‘normal’ period) is considered premature (known as Extreme Low Gestational Age Newborns, ELGANs, to the professionals). The more premature the baby, the lower its survival rate, with most born before 23 weeks not expected to survive
  • Premature babies require a huge amount of intensive care during their first weeks, including assistance in breathing and feeding, while they are very susceptible to developing infections and having low blood counts
  • A baby born at 24 weeks (six months) has a 70% chance of survival
  • A baby born at 24 weeks may weigh as little as 450 grams (less than one pound)
  • Administration of breast milk is especially important in cases of  premature births

The new guide is aiming to bring parents more into the fold when it comes to their baby’s initial care. This will involve participating in medical rounds, providing breast milk, just observing a baby’s movements, comfort holding, skin-to-skin care, nappy changing, even tube feeding.

“We want these parents to be their child’s primary carers, that is what’s best for the baby. We provide the medical care, but we can’t do what a parent does,” says Professor El Khuffash

“It’s hard to cope”

24-year-old Laura Boylan from Rockcorry, Co Monaghan, is a young mother who went through the mill with her own premature baby last year.

“I had a mini haemorrhage at 29 weeks and was hospitalised for a time, then on 21 October 2015 my waters broke. I was 33 weeks, James wasn’t due until 9 December,” she says.

I just about made it to the hospital (Cavan General)! He was born within two hours at 5 lbs 9 oz.

Baby James, Laura’s second child, was jaundiced and on oxygen for several hours. Aside from that he presented with few problems, but that didn’t make the experience any easier.

“I’ve developed anxiety from having a premature baby, having the first haemorrhage was such a shock, it’s very hard to cope,” says Laura. “You need to actively try to relax if you’re in this situation, take each day as it comes because every day could be different.”

laura Laura Boylan and baby James on his Christening day

It had been mentioned to me that James might come early after the haemorrhage. But that doesn’t prepare you for it, nothing can.
Definitely don’t keep things bottled up, particularly if you have other children already.

In total, James Owen spent four weeks in hospital in a Special Care Unit. Within hours of the birth Laura was required to provide breast milk for his carers to be administered to James. She understands the importance of spending as much time with your premature baby as possible.

“Oh definitely. They need skin-to-skin contact, which can be hard because when they’re taken away from you after birth at first they don’t feel like your baby. But it helps them to grow,” she says.

It stops them from being unsettled. They’re your baby, and they don’t know what’s going on and what’s happening to them.

‘Kangaroo’ care

“We want the parents as involved as possible,” says El Khuffash. “We call it kangaroo care, when a baby is held to the parents’ skin under a jumper or whichever after birth. We now know that it stabilises them.”

Even at a time when a parent can not provide the medical care necessary, it’s important that they are involved.

He says that Irish hospitals are now moving “more and more towards what we call family-integrated care”.

“Some hospitals are taking this to the next step, empowering parents as primary carers, having them feed their baby through a tube, or recording the vitals of their baby, under supervision of course, their heart rate, that kind of thing,” he says.

Balance is needed, we don’t want to raise unfounded concerns. But anyone can undergo a pre-term birth, especially those with a family history of such births.
Everyone needs to be a little more informed. Everyone should be aware of what can happen.

Read: FactCheck: No, Ireland is NOT “officially accepting Trump refugees”

Read: Teen accused of stealing exotic animals from Lucan library

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    Mute Tallaght two
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    Feb 21st 2015, 7:32 AM

    I would not want to be in those towers with a fire on the floors below. Very frightening. How everyone got out ok.

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    Mute Tallaght two
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    Feb 21st 2015, 7:33 AM

    *hope

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    Mute Radu Covrig
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    Feb 21st 2015, 9:12 AM

    The Torch tower caught fire. Unfortunate and ironic

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    Mute Sacha Mahady
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    Feb 21st 2015, 8:44 AM

    Wow. Another skyscraper fire that burned for hours and did not result in a pinpoint collapse. And still people accept what cr@p is spouted about what happened to tower 7 on that horrible day in sept 11. Great to hear no one was badly hurt in this fire.

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    Mute John Reese
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    Feb 21st 2015, 8:49 AM

    Did a 767 hit it though….duh no

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    Mute Paul Furey
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    Feb 21st 2015, 9:06 AM

    With full tanks of thousands of tons of fuel.

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    Mute Horgay H
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    Feb 21st 2015, 9:08 AM

    Re Sacha

    Well said

    Re John

    Tower 7, a separate building to the two twin towers, was a 47 storey skyscraper. It received minimal superficial damage from parts of the plane and none of this damage was structural. Apparently the ‘fire’ that raged in a small part of the building caused the whole structure to suddenly collapse in freefall within a clue of seconds. Scientists are still baffled as to how this happened. It was investigated and a model put forward as to how it happened but this data will not be released by the government despite lots of requests and no one else can recreate the findings of the investigators re this.

    Tower 7, is the elephant in the room. It cannot be explained and anyone who believes the official conspiracy theory them please explain Tower 7.

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    Mute Barry Cooper
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    Feb 21st 2015, 9:50 AM

    Twin towers were engineered to take a hit from the plane but don’t let facts get in the way. Building 7 fell and no plane hit that. Any thoughts on y that one fell

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    Mute Alan b
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    Feb 21st 2015, 10:01 AM

    Ah boys ye are away with the fairies!

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    Mute Gary
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    Feb 21st 2015, 10:27 AM

    Paul, Scientific fact or Media coverage, you decide. The following information is easily found.
    Extremely high temperatures were evident before and after the destruction of the World Trade Center Twin Towers. Office and hydrocarbon fires burning in open air (~500° to 1,500° F) cannot reach temperatures in the range that iron or structural steel melts (2,700° F).
    Thermal images from NASA found temperatures at ground zero to be as high as 2,800F.
    Iron oxide and aluminum are the ingredients of classic thermite, an incendiary that burns at approximately 4500°F, producing aluminum oxide and molten iron. The carbon content of the ground zero metal indicates the presence of thermite.
    Thermal images taken by NASA and EarthData satellites show that the “hot spots” remained at the same locations. The phenomenon did not “move” across the site, like one would expect from fire as it consumes the fuel available in any one location.
    University of California professor Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl, the first structural engineer given access to the WTC steel notes, “I saw melting of girders at the World Trade Center.” Astaneh also “describes the connections [between supporting columns] as being smoothly warped: “That could only happen if you get steel yellow hot or white hot – perhaps around 2,000 degrees.’”.

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    Mute Andy Byrne
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    Feb 21st 2015, 11:36 AM

    Where was the plane that hit the pentagon? Or the field? Look at the pics!!

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    Mute James Whelan
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    Feb 21st 2015, 1:25 PM

    The difference between conspiracy theorists these days and those from the past is that today the so called ‘Tin foil hat ‘ merchants have all the scientific facts to back up their arguments.

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    Mute Sacha Mahady
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    Feb 21st 2015, 3:05 PM

    No John it did not. I would say it was hit with about the same amount of plane as tower 7 though. I’m not here to educate you. Do your own research before you talk nonsense.
    Separately the energy from the aviation fuel would have burnt out within a few minutes leaving only paper and desks to burn the rest. Computers and copiers don’t make great fire wood. Convenient that a un burnt passport which was apparently on the body of one of the terrorists was found at ground zero in near perfect condition too. The fact is that in every case possible. Everything falls at the line of least resistance. And the line of least resistance is not straight down through reinforced columns.

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    Mute Stephen Earle
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    Feb 21st 2015, 3:33 PM

    Sacha, they dont build towers with the same method of construction like the World Trade Center anymore so referring to it is ill informed

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    Mute Lloyd Hetherington
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    Feb 21st 2015, 9:27 AM

    That’s what you get when you use slave labour!

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    Mute Neal Ireland Hello
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    Feb 21st 2015, 12:30 PM

    I doubt that the architects were slaves.

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    Mute Charlie Mountney
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    Feb 21st 2015, 9:31 AM

    Well said Lloyd. Another ultra conservative Middle Eastern shitehole.

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    Mute Paul Cassidy
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    Feb 21st 2015, 9:45 AM

    John…you implying a 767 hit tower 7? No plane hit tower 7.

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    Mute Micheal S. O' Ceilleachair
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    Feb 21st 2015, 11:40 AM

    Remember the Towering Inferno. Good film.

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    Mute Vaibhav Borse
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    Feb 21st 2015, 9:17 AM

    i didn’t know Dubai had a torch!!

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    Mute space invader
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    Feb 21st 2015, 5:47 PM

    A few less windows for the window cleaners to clean Monday morning

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