Kangaroos in the NICU

The following is an Article that I found on my message board. It was posted by Sarah, a NICU parent. I thought it was so good I asked her for permission to reprint it here for you to see. I have checked out the facts of her article and they are true. You can look up the History of Kangaroo Care on Google. I thought this was better because it is from a parent who knows! Enjoy!
-------------
For those of you who are veteran NICU visitors, you likely have an idea what I’m about to address, but maybe even the most experienced NICU "club" members can learn something from this.

What I’m addressing is not animals hopping around in the NICU, but a very intelligent practice that was developed from the care a mother kangaroo has for her little baby Joey. When a very helpless and immature baby kangaroo is born, it slowly makes its way up to it’s mom’s milk supply where the tiny Joey remains for months. These little guys thrive in their little protective pouches, completely dependent on his mother for months. For those of you that are still not exactly sure how the marsupial "kangaroo" name got in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, let me explain.

"Kangaroo Care" as it's most often referred to was implemented in the country Columbia in the early 1980’s by a couple of physicians. Having a premature infant in America in the 80’s was a luxury in comparison to having a child in Columbia where much of the country was stricken with poverty. Neonatal Intensive Care Units were no where near what they are today. Many, many families did not have the option of a NICU either because they could not afford extensive hospitalizations or simply because there was a lack of staff and equipment to run adequate NICU’s.

So, what’s a mother to do when she doesn’t have the financial supporto or resources to have her premature baby in a NICU? Okay, get ready for this...She strips her baby down of his clothing down to his or her diaper and then she places the baby against her bare chest. After that, she covers both herself and the baby up. Then together she will go about her business.

Sounds a bit strange doesn’t it? It may sound strange, but the mortality rate of these infants dropped nearly 40% which is miraculous considering the fact that there is very little to no invasive intervention with this method. I was IMing with one of my group members the other day and was discouraged to hear that some of the staff wasn’t being supportive of this type of care. If they are working in the NICU, they should know that that isn’t true. Many studies have been done on "kangarooing" and there have been no real negative effects of this type of bonding. In fact, most of the studies I have come across where very much in support of "kangaroo Care". The following are just some of the benefits of "Kangaroo Care":
- a deeper and much needed sleep for the baby
- lower Oxygen requirements and deeper oxygen saturation
- fewer spells of APNEA (short cessation in breathing)
- fewer Bradys (drop in heart rate) which generally means a heart rate that drops below 100 beats per minute which lasts generally longer than 15 seconds
- the infant can maintain it’s temperature easier which is often difficult for preemies
- faster weights have been noted (which means just one more thing to nudge you guys out the door and back home).
- babies generally remain calmer because they can hear their mother’s heartbeat
- easier to establish mother to child and child to mother bonding which is obviously needed
- longer periods of alertness
These are some of the major benefits of "Kangarooing" with your baby. If someone tells you that your baby is too little for that, I would definitely question that. I personally did "kangaroo Care with both of my children when they were in the NICU. My oldest is my daughter named Tianna and she was born at 28 weeks gestation. She had relatively no health issues that were life threatening or that I should have worried about. My son Devin was also "kangarooed" and he was born at 23 weeks gestation. I did "kangaroo care" with him despite the fact that he was only around 4 or 5 weeks old and still very, very tiny and very sick. The nurses had to literally tape his ventilator (to aid in breathing) tubes to me so he didn’t accidentally extubate himself which means have his tubes pulled out. So I believe that if the staff believed in "kangrooing" a baby that was born 16 weeks early, and still on the "vent" , chances are you can do the same with your baby. The only negative aspect of doing "kangaroo care" with my son Devin was that his stats did drop a little during the transfer from the bed to me but that only happened for a couple seconds and they went back up. I truly believe my children thrived in part because of the "kangaroo care" which tends to make a baby feel more like they are back in the womb and are comforted by listening to their parents heartbeat. "kangarooing" is not limited to mom either so I encourage fathers to "kangaroo" as well.
There are reasons that you may not be able to kangaroo with your baby. Your baby may be too sick to do this type of care with so ultimately you will likely have to leave it up to the staff, but if you feel your baby can handle it, and you want do do...it’s okay to argue your case with staff.

100% All Natural Organic Cotton Preemie Tees

While I have never had a need to use organic cotton exclusively. I can understand why it is important for some people. When I was a teenager my mother had a breakdown in her immune system that caused her to have to remove all chemicals from her food and her environment. It was a scary time for all of us. She was allergic to almost everything - unable to eat lots of foods, smell chemicals, perfumes, cleaning products, soaps or even read the newspaper and she was unable to wear anything except all organic fabrics. Eventually her system went back to normal but it left me with an appreciation for why natural products are needed and even preferred.

Given the delicate systems of premature babies I was elated when my primary fabric supplier told me that they had organic cotton available for me to purchase! And with any luck they will continue to carry it well into the future. Our organic cotton is grown in the United States and milled in Manitoba, Canada and then shipped back to me in the United States. No chemicals, dyes or harmful substances are used in the growing, harvesting, processing or milling of this cotton. Since all of our Preemie Tees are made-to-order you can have anything we carry made up in the organic cotton. Just pick "organic cotton" as your fabric choice when placing your order. I believe we have the largest selection of organic cotton wear available to premature babies anywhere! And we are excited to make it available to you!

The Benefits of Organic Cotton
Organic cotton baby clothes are a hot commodity with retailers recently - it is the latest trend in "trendy" becoming a new fashion statement in clothes for tots. Almost everyone, including places like Wal-mart carry a line of organic cotton baby clothes. But even with this hot new trend most parents do not have any idea what it really means to be organic.

Basically, organic is means that something is grown in a chemical-free environment. Organic means that the fields the cotton is grown in is free from pesticides or chemicals for at least three years. No fertilizers are used as well. Organic farmers fertilize their fields by rotating the crops, using composted manure and planting other crops that naturally feed nitrogen into the soil. Further, organic farms are heavily regulated and watched by a third party to ensure that organic cotton is exactly what it claims to be.

Conventional cotton has no such regulations and it is impossible to judge what extent pesticides are used. The concern comes because the cotton absorbs any chemicals as it grows and the chemicals do not wash out in processing. Further, manufactures add to this chemical mix the addition of dyes and sizing. Baby clothes made from organic cotton insure that sensitive systems are not compromised through pesticides, chemicals or dyes.

Eating foods and wearing clothes that are organically grown is good for you and good for the environment by having a low impact on the land, farmers and workers. Everyone benefits - especially the babies. Organically grown cotton has a softness and quality that cannot be matched and is the top reason people choose organic cotton for their baby's delicate skin. Conventional cotton fibers are weakened by chemicals, processing and dying that break down the fibers and produce an inferior product. This is why organic cotton is a stronger, softer, better cotton. Because of the way organic cotton is made it is a little more expensive. For now we will not charge more for the organic cotton option but it may become necessary in the future.

Our organic cotton is a natural color and we are looking into finding natural dyes that do not fade in the washer. Until we find a good dye and a cost effective way to process it we will only carry the natural color. But feel free to add color with over 26 colors in our snap selection.

We hope you will like our new product!

(For more information on organic cotton search the words "why organic cotton" on any search engine.)

Preemie Toddler Training Pants

Elliot is about ready to be potty trained and we are so excited for him except that we CANNOT find any training pants anywhere to fit his tiny tushy! Elliot is a whopping 22 pounds! He wears 18 months size clothes but all his pants fall down around his ankles. His waist is more the size of a 12 month old. So we check around to see if other preemie parents are having this same trouble. It turns out they are and some of them have even asked me if we make training pant long before we experienced the problem for ourselves. SO...

We are getting ready to role out a brand new product! We are so excited!!!

Training Pants for Preemie Toddlers!

Preemie Mom's are having such a hard time finding training pants to fit these tiny tushies. But we need your help! You can be a part of our R&D team by testing a pair of training pants at cost. So for $3.00 (plus shipping) all you have to do is send us your Toddler's measurements. To get the pants you need to send us an e-mail with the measurements of your toddler's Tiny Tushy. We will send you back instructions on how you will be able to order the training pants on our website. After you get your training pants all we need is your feedback.

Here are the measurements we need -
* waist
* upper thigh (where the leg hole would go)
* girth (from navel to lower back)
* weight
* height
* birth weight and number of weeks early

Your toddler MUST have been a preemie to qualify for this offer. Preemie is defined here as being more than 6 weeks early. Your toddler MUST also be between the ages 18 months and 3 1/2 years old and be in the early stages of potty training AND you have had difficulty in finding training pants to fit. If training pants that are currently on the market fit your toddler you DO NOT qualify. This market test is ONLY for those who cannot find training pants that fit. If your toddler can wear a size 18 months around the waist or larger you will not qualify. Please give me a brief explanation of how frustrated you have been by this problem and what your experience has been.

This offer will be on a first come - first serve basis and will be extended to the first 25 people who contact me and meet ALL the above qualifications.

Thanks for your help and input!

Dressing Your Preemie in the NICU

I got a message today from a former customer on a message board I belong to and it reminded me of why we make Preemie Tees. Some days the days are long or we would rather be doing other things and posts like this help me to keep going when the going is tough. I have included her post and my response plus a few other customer comments over the past two years. I think it is really important for everyone to realize that this small act of dressing preemies has far reaching effects - tiny acts produce great big miracles!

I also purchased some clothes for Mia while she was in the NICU from preemietees.com. I looked at alot of different places and I chose preemietees because I could customize her clothes--snaps or velcro; front or side opening, etc...--and there are a TON of fabrics to choose from. The different options were great because she could wear clothes with all the wires, IVs, etc.

I also liked the fact that they are made for micro-preemies. Mia didn't fit into the preemie sizes from Wal-Mart or Babies R'Us until about a month after she came home!

The clothes I bought at preemietees were the first things I purchased after she was born and it helped me feel like I was doing something normal--buying clothes and dressing my child in something that was from home-not the hospital! I felt like I was doing this extraordinary thing in the midst of feeling (at times) very helpless. It wasn't until I washed and took the clothes in and dressed her that I realized the impact it had on me. I would recommend (if the hospital and Drs. are OK with it) buying clothes for your LO. It seems so small and sometimes silly, but it really was empowering.
Kelly

Hi Kelly!

Thank you for that sweet and heartfelt endorsement! I found all the things you said to be identical to what we experienced with Elliot. My daughter Brooke was so scared of him. I knew she had to bond with him to save his life! After some praying and thinking it occurred to me that if she dressed him it might help. What happened after that was nothing short of a miracle. Just dressing him made him seem more like her baby and the walls came down and she fell in love with him. It literally changed everything. Last year I learned from one of the March of Dimes studies that they found that dressing a preemie in the NICU helped mothers to bond with their babies significantly. They are proving what you and I already know...it helps to dress a baby in the NICU! This is why we do what we do!

Thank you for sharing your story with me.

Debbie

Other Customer Comments:

I just wanted to tell you that we are very satisfied with the clothes we ordered for our daughter, Alexa. She was 1 lb 4oz at birth (26 weeker) so we have had a very difficult time finding clothing for her that was not super expensive. Your clothing was absolutely perfect for her. I have told all the other NICU Moms about yout site, so I am sure you will be hearing from them too! Thank you for giving preemie parents like us quality, affordable clothing for our tiny miracles!

Sincerely,

Heather P.

--------------------------------

I just wanted to tell you how wonderful I think you company is and I look forward to getting to the place where I can order something for my daughter Kariana to wear. She was born on October 13,2006 weighing 1 lb 7.7 oz & 12 3/4 inches born @ 25.4 weeks. I found your site looking for the same thing your daughter felt, some way to make this, the worst experience in my life, back into what it was intended to be, the most joyous! Thank you for your commitment and for sharing your story with other parents like me, I now have more hope. God Bless You.

-------------------------------

I wanted to see how your company was growing, so I \"googled\" to find you. I am thrilled with the progress you have made. I believe it is a great service to those of us who only want the best for our preemies - to be able to dress them, and treat them as \"normally\" as possible. It will help many moms out there be able to care for their child a bit sooner - make them feel like they can be the Mom, not the nurse. Way to go!

Kristin

-----------------------------

Debbie,thank you so much for the preemietees,they fit cooper really good and look so cute on him as well.The nurses in the nicu always comment on how easy they are to put on him especially because he likes to fight when he is being changed! It also makes it easier on me and his dad now we have have a little more"hands on time with him". again thank for doing what you do to make parents with preemie's in the nicu a little more tolerable.
Jamie,Jason and baby cooper!!

----------------------------

Hi ... as a former NICU mom .. thanks for selling clothes that aren't so expensive that the average person cant afford them! I had such a hard time finding my daughter things ... and so wanted her to be in her clothes and not naked all the time because nothing would fit yet. If I have another preemie ... I will be back to shop!

Jennifer

--------------------------

Hi Debbie,

I ordered several outfits from your website for my beautiful daughter, Madison. She is a 24 weeker and weighed 1 lb. 9 oz. at birth. Her nurses love her clothes and likes to tell me that she is the best dressed kid in the NICU.

Thank you for providing clothing for these tiny ones… I was very distraught to find that the preemie clothing available in stores was way too big. By chance I found your website…Being able to dress my child in cute clothing really does make me feel a little bit more like a "real Mom" to her. I hope you will continue to provide clothing options for these little sweethearts.

Sincerely,

Casey

-----------------------------

These are just a few of the hundreds of comments I get from parents! I hope you enjoy them. If you have ordered Preemie Tees feel free to add any comments of your own!

Elliot - Then & Now