Premature babies are extremely vulnerable. They trust us implicitly

Premature babies are extremely vulnerable. They trust us implicitly
One in 10 babies is born prematurely, or before 37 weeks gestation. In Poland this amounts to about 26 thousand prematurely born children annually. Some of them are so tiny that they fit in the palm of your hand and weigh as much as a teddy bear. Fortunately, thanks to advances in neonatology, they can be saved.

Yesterday was World Prematurity Day. The buildings of some hospitals and institutions around the world have been illuminated in purple. A sign of solidarity with children born prematurely and their parents. Purple is the color of premature babies, symbolizing their extreme delicacy and vulnerability.

This year we treated almost 400 prematurely born infants, including extremely immature ones born with the body weight below 1000 grams. That is 15 percent of all births which took place in the Department of Obstetrics and Perinatology of our Pediatric Hospital - informs prof. Bozena Kociszewska-Najman from the Department of Neonatology MUW.
Nowadays, thanks to the progress in neonatology, we can speak of a very high survival rate among newborns born prematurely. Our expert believes that we owe this to the very fast developing prenatal diagnostics as well as modern diagnostic and therapeutic process of newborns.

- We have the opportunity to perform early diagnostics, using numerous imaging studies that detect a variety of pathologies early. We use new types of ventilation, we introduce early breastfeeding, but most importantly we have specialists with extensive experience in caring for premature babies. In our Department we also have physiotherapists who stimulate the development of our little patients from day one. It all results in higher survival rate among newborns born prematurely and what is extremely important - their quality of life is definitely better - emphasizes prof. Kociszewska-Najman.

This year's World Prematurity Day slogan is: Zero Separation. The idea is to emphasize how important mom-child, dad-child contact is from day one. In the era of COVID-19, this is not easy to put it into practice. Prof. Kociszewska-Najman admits pandemic is a difficult time. Nevertheless, in the Department of Neonatology of MUW it was decided that a mother who is not hospitalized can come to see her newborn every day. Breastfeed or bottle feed the baby, cuddle and take an active part in the diagnostic and therapeutic process. The Department of Neonatology also opened rooms for mothers in October this year. In these rooms live mothers of these premature babies who are treated in the Department of Neonatology. Mom can stay with her sick toddler 24 hours a day.