For Parents Of Preemies, Life Starts With A Complex Fight For Survival
Kate Teague, a registered nurse at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital in Palo Alto, California, holds a premature baby’s hand on Oct. 20, 2015. (Heidi de Marco/KHN)
About 380,000 babies are born too soon every year in the United States, a preterm birth rate that’s far higher than most high-income, developed countries.
Even with so many families facing the realities of a premature child, predicting the long-term health of a baby is difficult, and doctors have an even tougher time talking about those predictions with parents.
, KHN’s Jenny Gold explained that in the largely underreported workings of the neonatal intensive care unit, or NICU as it’s referred to, many families feel lost and isolated at a time when they are supposed to be happiest.
Kate Hopper’s daughter, Stella, was born eight weeks early and spent the first part of her life in the NICU.
“There was a sense that you don’t ask, really, ‘Is she going to be okay?'” Hopper explained. “There was really only one point, after I found out that Stella had a small brain bleed, I said to the doctor, ‘What does this mean?'”
Today, Stella is a healthy, happy, soccer-playing 12-year-old, and Hopper, the author of “,” volunteers at the NICU, helping parents who are making tough decisions about their baby’s health and future.
The Takeaway is a co-production of Public Radio International and WNYC Radio in collaboration with The New York Times and WGBH Boston.
