Being a nurse I get the privileged of working in the neonatal intensive care unit or the NICU. It has given me a totally new view on life. I am amazed over and over again at how something so small can be so strong. Just a few quick facts for you. As of right now research tells us the youngest viable gestational age is 21 weeks. In other words the smallest a baby can be born prematurely and survive is only after being inside mom for 21 weeks. A normal pregnancy is 36-40 weeks so you can image how small and underdeveloped these little guys are at only 21 weeks.
Personally the youngest I have ever seen a NICU baby is 21 weeks and 5 days. Let's call him Patrick. He was about the size and weight of my cell phone. Now being that young he needed a lot of help physically. As full grown humans we don't appreciate our bodies ability maintain its own temperature, breathe how ever fast our body needs oxygen and be able to feed and digest food. These four things are so hard for NICU babies. Their little bodies just don't have the energy for it so the fabulous NICU nurse's do these things for them.
We NICU nurses get very attached to the babies and their families for some NICU babies will stay in the hospital for months getting everything straightened out in order to be ready to go home.
Patrick and his family became our family very quickly for he was in the hospital for 4 months. I am happy to say Patrick went home with his parents and is doing well today. He is still on oxygen and is very small for his age but he is as happy and rambunctious as any other boy. I wanted to show you a few photos I took.
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| The diaper on the left is your average newborn diaper that fits a 7ish pound baby. The diaper in the middle is a premi diaper and the diaper on the right is for what we call micro-premi babies. That is the size Patrick wore and is was huge on him. |
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| These are the shoes Patrick's grandma made for him. It took his a few weeks to grow into them. Grandma's got skills. These are so cute. |
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