Sam was born at 36 weeks. At that gestation a lot of babies don't have a suck reflex, so you may have to express and bub will be fed through an NG tube until they are able to suck. Sam had no breathing issues as a result of his prematurity (had a few problems a couple of days later as a numpty nurse put in an NG tube that was too short), but it took him ten days to get out of hospital. After 8 days he was tried on all suck feeds, on day 9 he was allowed to room in with me as he'd coped with the full suck feeds and then on day 10 we were discharged. I was lucky as it was a private hospital and very quiet over the Christmas period so I was able to stay in with him the whole time.

The nursery at the hospital takes babies from 34 weeks, so if you get to 35-36 weeks you are looking more at SCN than NICU - depending on other issues bub may have.

BW