Kangaroo Care

When a preemie is born, the experience of the birth is much different than that of a full-term baby. For us, it meant two teams of people in the delivery room, one for me and one for Buzzy. In total, there were about 30 people in the room. It also meant that I was not handed my baby directly after birth. Instead of being placed on my chest, she was put in a pre-warmed bed and immediately given an oxygen mask. The team did not waste any time in getting her up to the NICU. They paused only briefly by my bedside so that I could get a quick glimpse of my child. I spent the next several hours in an operating room, where my doctors had to remove the placenta that had become abrupted and fragmented, and in recovery, where I had to receive a blood transfusion.

When I was finally allowed to be wheeled up to the NICU, I couldn't hold my child. There she was, more tubes and wires than actual human. She spent the first few days of her life not knowing what it felt like to be held by her mother and father. Then, one day a nurse asked us if anyone had told us about kangaroo care. We had not, but we soon learned that it meant we could finally hold our child.

Essentially, kangaroo care is holding the baby against the mom or dad's bare chest. The baby is covered with a blanket so as to help keep him or her warm. To make sure that Buzzy did not get too cold outside her Isolette, we took her temperature every 15 minutes. (Kangaroo sessions lasted at least 45 minutes).

Not all babies can do kangaroo care, so we were fortunate that Buzzy could. Still, there were days that we opted not to disturb her. If she had had several apneas, bradycardias, and/or desats within the hours prior to our visit, we left her alone. We did not want to stress her fragile system. We were also careful to keep an eye on the monitor as we did kangaroo care. If she started showing signs of distress, we returned her to her bed.

As long as Buzzy was in her Isolette, we could only hold her kangaroo style. When she graduated to a bassinet, we could hold her more like a newborn, and for Buzzy, we were not able to do that until she was about six weeks old. By that time, the parent of a full-term baby has most likely settled into a routine, and we were still four weeks away from taking ours home.

I may never know the joy of holding my newborn baby just minutes after birth. (With my oldest, I was not able to do so either because I had an emergency C-section. I spent less time in recovery, but it was still hours before I could hold her.) However, for me, the amount of joy one feels is magnified by the suffering and strife from which it is born, and the day I first held Buzzy was the closest I have ever come to pure joy.