Premature Birth

Childbirth is considered premature if it occurs before the 37th week of pregnancy. A normal pregnancy takes 40 weeks.  Most premature babies are born between 34 and 36 weeks of gestation.  Most of them will grow well and will have small effects (or not).

Many factors can influence the risk of premature labor: maternal infections, problems with blood pressure, pregnancy-related issues. There are two types of premature labor: those that are accidental and medical ones which are due to the health of the mother or fetus.

Premature baby is exposed to more problems because their functions are immature: respiratory system, heart, brain, hematology . . . After birth, the baby may be hospitalized for a few days or weeks in the newborn unit of hospital.

At the hospital, once baby's condition is stabilized, mom can take care of him or her, she can touch or feed. After hospitalization, premature babies often need special medical monitoring in order to detect possible developmental problems and to begin appropriate treatment. Some babies will not need any treatment. This happened to our baby, as well. David didn’t need any special care. It is true that during hospitalization, which took 2 weeks, he stayed into incubator, but he didn’t need any supplemental oxygenation or something else.

Breastfeeding him was a problem, because he didn’t have the necessary force for that and I had to feed him using a tea spoon. Another little problem was the prolonged jaundice, which he had for almost a month. We got a little scared, but the doctors said it is a normal consequence of the premature birth. We had to give him vitamin B and then everything was OK. Thank God, there weren’t any other problems! Even at the beginning, he was very little (only 2000 g), David turned to be an absolutely normal baby, with a normal evolution.