Friend in labour with prem bub how can I help?

[*Beema*]

If she is going to be expressing, having a photo of bub there to look at while she pumps can help with milk supply too. And can she give bub a small teddy or blanket that has her smell on it?

Great suggestion, we gave N a small panda, which sat on her isolete and in her cot when we couldn't be there and she loves it now, I think Panda will be a stayer!

Wish we knew about the drip option Liz, I guess N had enough needles and stuff poked into her, and in the end it didn't matter.

To encourage her suck feeding, we gave her a dummy and held it for her to suck when she was getting tube feed, this encouraged the when I suck I get full, we didn't try this until we transferred but it made a big difference in her suck feeding. We also only gave bottle after boob, on 2 occassions, the rest was tube feeding or boob.

[BekZ]

Thanks Ladies for your overwhelming support and advice.

I met the little miss today and she is just beautiful. Tiny and petite!!

Thankfully mum and dad refused bottle feeding and they are now not allowing formula. Mum's milk is coming in today too. Bub has had 3 bf's in the last 24hours. The hospital have only just given mum the option to express if needed but they are determined for bub to bf as often as possible. Bub is still so sleepy. I was there for one hour and she just would not wake to feed, this was after 6 hours of sleep. We tried everything to keep her awake and finally she attached and sucked for 15 mins. If bub feeds well this arvo they are going to let her stay with mum overnight.

Now I am off to the ABA website to get that booklet....mwah and heartfelt thanks

[Yael]

I have no experience with prems, but i just wanted to say my daughter was born at 42 weeks, and was only 2.7kg, so you can tell your friend she did fantastic growing her to 3kg at 35 weeks!

Just remember to give your friend lots of cuddles, and also maybe something special for her? Like a nice giftpack of shower stuff or something to make her feel nice? I'm sure she is exausted from all of this, and not at all like she was thinking the first few weeks would be like.