Having a child can be one of the most exciting moments in a person’s life. Unfortunately, it tends to also be one of the most stressful times as well. This moment in their life can become even more stressful if they end up having a premature baby. The chances of this occurring are higher than some people think, with about ten percent of all babies born last year being premature. So while the odds of having a premature baby are not huge, it is still a very real possibility.
If a couple makes a trip to a veteran’s medical center in Los Angeles and finds out that they are going to be having a premature baby, then they need to know how to handle the situation. This article is here to help the families of military members and veterans deal with the stressful event of premature birth by providing this helpful knowledge about having a premature baby.
What Causes Premature Birth?
One of the biggest stress factors surrounding premature births is the guilt that parents, particularly mothers, feel for putting their unborn child into this situation. This guilt can sometimes be so destructive that it requires the family to seek family military medical support programs in California. That is why it can be helpful to know what factors can cause a premature birth to occur so that they are aware of what may have led to this situation and how they can prevent it from happening.
Some of the common preventable causes that may or may not contribute to experiencing a premature birth include the mother smoking, consuming alcohol, using drugs, having diabetes, being obese, and having high blood pressure. While these things cannot be easily fixed, they are entirely preventable and just require a bit of commitment and some slight pharmaceutical assistance in some cases.
However, not all causes of premature births are preventable. Some of them occur entirely by chance and cannot be fixed or altered by the time that pregnancy occurs. For example, when a woman gets pregnant at a very young age or a very old age, she is slightly more at risk to experience a premature birth. This can also occur if the woman is carrying more than one child at a time.
In some rare cases, a premature birth can occur even when none of these risk factors are present. That is why it is important that the couple does not carry any guilt with them since even if they ensure that all of the preventable factors have been taken care of, there is no guarantee that a premature birth will not still occur.
They Are Very Vulnerable to Germs
This may not seem like a big deal, since most babies are fairly vulnerable to germs. However, when it comes to taking care of premature babies, the threat of germs is even more significant. This is because the immune system of the child has not yet had time to develop to even the level of a normal baby. Therefore, any sort of germs entering their system are going to have a much better chance of wreaking havoc.
That is why parents of a premature baby should enforce a strict hand washing rule and ensure that no one who has recently smoked is coming near the child. As a good precaution, they should also avoid taking the premature child to any heavily populated public spaces since these are often filled with a huge amount of germs.
They Will Likely Need to Stay In Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
When a child is born, the parents likely want nothing more than to be able to hold it in their arms and take it home to care for it and love it. Unfortunately, when it comes to dealing with premature babies, it often means that taking the child home right away is not a possibility.
This is because the vast majority of the child’s organs have not had an opportunity to fully develop yet, meaning that they need medical assistance and performing their basic tasks. In order to help with this, a significant portion of premature babies are immediately brought to the NICU of the VA Medical Center in Los Angeles. It is in this area of the hospital where they will have a variety of equipment that can be used to help the premature child cope with the basic tasks of life such as eating and breathing.
The length of time that the child has to stay in this unit varies from case to case, but it can sometimes be as long as two weeks. Most parents will not be comfortable going home without their newborn child for that long. Luckily, in many cases they do not have to thanks to available VA housing in Los Angeles.
By contacting the local VA housing company that operates in the same city as the medical center that they have given birth, parents may be granted the opportunity to stay in fully equipped and modern housing units that are located near the hospital. This will allow them the opportunity to stay close to their child at no additional cost and frequently visit them in the NICU until they can be released.
Their Sleep Schedule Is Different
One of the most common complaints among new parents is the lack of sleep that they get from their child frequently waking them up throughout the night. In some ways, having a premature baby can make this a little bit better, but unfortunately it will also make it much worse in other areas. For example, premature babies tend to sleep as much as 22 hours every day, which may seem like a good thing since it means that the parents will have a more relaxing time.
Unfortunately, the quality of sleep is going to be much different from that of a regular newborn baby. A standard newborn will have a little trouble sleeping through the night for the first couple of months and will then get you better at staying asleep for multiple hours at once. However, with a premature newborn, they are going to have much lighter sleeping habits, which means that they are likely going to wake up every couple of hours for as much as the first nine months.
