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Breastfeeding a Preemie
A New Mom's Experience
By Belinda Clarke
Most people will tell you that breastfeeding requires diligence and hard work, but breastfeeding a premature infant brings additional challenges. Of course it's worth it to provide the absolute best nutrition for your new baby, but when it comes to feeding a preemie, the road to success can be slow and stressful.
In utero, babies are not required to breathe or eat on their own. Because of this, pre-term infants often have trouble doing these things. Being thrust out of their cozy environment early, they are suddenly required to perform functions they "shouldn't have to do" at that point in their development. Depending on how premature the baby, some infants can't eat (or breathe) on their own following birth. In the case of my preemie, I was lucky that he came out screaming and never needed breathing assistance. Eating was another story. Born at 32 weeks, I knew that my son would be in the hospital's special care unit for several weeks, perhaps even until his due date. Unsure about when he would be able to breastfeed, I began expressing my milk right away to provide colostrum and then the subsequent breastmilk to him while he was in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). I began a practice of bringing chilled breastmilk from home to the hospital for the nurses to use. Because of his immature sucking reflex, most of his meals were fed to him via a feeding tube that went into his nose directly to stomach. However, as he got stronger, more meals were fed via bottle.
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