Boston and NICU support?

G'day

My best friend is a professor and a major workaholic - much more than
me. She finally got pregnant, but long after she had already moved away
from Austin to Boston, and she was inconsiderate enough not to move back
to Austin so we could be preggo together. So I've been supporting her
from afar, and she did come to meet my new baby Madeleina already.

Anyway, her major workaholicness over the years has led to ulcers,
stress, gastric problems, etc etc and though she had scaled back, she
still was not taking it easy enough. Last week she got diagnosed with
pre-eclampsia and put into hospital. And this morning I just heard that
they delivered her boy a couple of hours ago. Brazos (the mum is 7th
generation texan and his nursery is done in texas ranch style!) was born
by C-section at 30 wks old, weighs in at 3 lbs, and is managing to
breath on his own so far. He'll be in the NICU for at least 6 weeks they
think.

I want to get on the next plane and be there for them. I want to
encourage and help her to pump so Brazos gets breastmilk. I want to
help her deal with recovery from her hospitalization. I want Leina to
go meet her new boyfriend. I want to cook her family meals. Wah.

(I can't do any of these things. I'm still recovering from my own
delivery, marooned on a couch till my blood rebuilds itself. And how
soon can you fly with a newborn anyway? Leina is 3 weeks, 2 days - time
is flying)

So what do I want other than a pity party? I seem to recall there have
been boston mothers posting in mkb who had experience in local
hospitals. What I want to know is what is Beth Israel like? Is their
NICU good? Do they support lots of mother/baby contact, what do they
call that - kangaroo care - when there is a lot of skin contact? Do they
have good support for new mothers with babies in NICU? Will they do all
they can to encourage her to pump milk to feed to her baby?

And other mums who have been there with long term NICU babies - what can
I do to help and support from afar? Or when I get there, which I do
intend to do, once I can travel, but that will probably be weeks away.
Are there good books to buy for her? Resources? Things to tell her to
read online? What?

Ruth


Mum to Joshua Eamon (Nov 15th, 2001)
Madeleina Venus (Nov 12th, 2005)
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~drruth/joshua/

In article ,
Ruth Shear wrote:

(I can't do any of these things. I'm still recovering from my own
delivery, marooned on a couch till my blood rebuilds itself. And how
soon can you fly with a newborn anyway? Leina is 3 weeks, 2 days - time
is flying)

I've heard you should wait until six months, but of course some newborns
who are being adopted fly home right away. Sorry I can't answer any of
your other questions!
--
Sara
accompanied by TK, number two, due in April of 2006

In misc.kids.breastfeeding Anonymama wrote:
: In article ,
: Ruth Shear wrote:

: (I can't do any of these things. I'm still recovering from my own
: delivery, marooned on a couch till my blood rebuilds itself. And how
: soon can you fly with a newborn anyway? Leina is 3 weeks, 2 days - time
: is flying)

: I've heard you should wait until six months, but of course some newborns
: who are being adopted fly home right away. Sorry I can't answer any of
: your other questions!
: --
: Sara
: accompanied by TK, number two, due in April of 2006

We flew with Clara from California to Texas (5 hours) when she
was 4 weeks old. We had NO problems at all.

Larry

Ruth Shear wrote:

I want to get on the next plane and be there for them. I want to
encourage and help her to pump so Brazos gets breastmilk. I want to
help her deal with recovery from her hospitalization. I want Leina to
go meet her new boyfriend. I want to cook her family meals. Wah.

I strongly encourage peapod-ing some groceries to her -- could be a
nice gift.

(I can't do any of these things. I'm still recovering from my own
delivery, marooned on a couch till my blood rebuilds itself. And how
soon can you fly with a newborn anyway? Leina is 3 weeks, 2 days - time
is flying)

14 days/2 weeks is the preferred minimum, according to major carriers
if I remember. It's also cold here, though, (with more snow predicted
tonight...gack), so you might want to hold off.

So what do I want other than a pity party? I seem to recall there have
been boston mothers posting in mkb who had experience in local
hospitals. What I want to know is what is Beth Israel like? Is their
NICU good? Do they support lots of mother/baby contact, what do they
call that - kangaroo care - when there is a lot of skin contact? Do they
have good support for new mothers with babies in NICU? Will they do all
they can to encourage her to pump milk to feed to her baby?

I have no first-hand consumer of BIDMC, nor of their NICU, but it's
held in high regard in the medical community, if that helps.

The only super-duper local contact I have is a group called "Lactation
Care" located in Newton (Dot Norcross is their director) -- Dot's email
is , phone 617-244-5593. They are amazing --
they've rented lactinas to me, continue to offer immediate Hale's
look-up advice, and are generally great folks. I highly highly
recommend them.

Best of luck with your newborn and in your efforts to assist your
friend.

Caledonia

Ruth Shear wrote:

Anyway, her major workaholicness over the years has led to ulcers,
stress, gastric problems, etc etc and though she had scaled back, she
still was not taking it easy enough. Last week she got diagnosed with
pre-eclampsia and put into hospital.

Odds are her stressful lifestyle had little to nothing to do with the
development of pre-eclampsia; see

http://www.preeclampsia.org/forum/to...?TOPIC_ID=9447

, where research experts in PE weigh in on this topic. The best guess
at the moment, at least in first pregnancies, is that the placenta
doesn't implant correctly during the first trimester because of
interference from the maternal immune system. PubMed has a recent
summary of the research which pops up readily if you search on
"preeclampsia spiral artery remodelling", titled "immunology in
preeclampsia" IIRC.

How is she doing? Has she been discharged; is her blood pressure back
down to the normal range?

So what do I want other than a pity party? I seem to recall there have
been boston mothers posting in mkb who had experience in local
hospitals. What I want to know is what is Beth Israel like? Is their
NICU good? Do they support lots of mother/baby contact, what do they
call that - kangaroo care - when there is a lot of skin contact? Do they
have good support for new mothers with babies in NICU? Will they do all
they can to encourage her to pump milk to feed to her baby?

My NICU, though not in Boston, was excellent wrt encouraging pumping,
providing hospital grade pumps, and providing in the NICU nesting rooms
for the parents and a pumping room for our use once I was discharged
from the hospital. The limiting factors were that a) I spent the first
three days postpartum lying down in the dark on a magnesium sulfate
drip while we waited for my symptoms to ameliorate enough to make a
seizure less of a real possibility, which made it very difficult to get
to the NICU and to pump, and b) I had difficulty letting down for the
pump, which was at least partly because of the PE -- it damages blood
vessels, and that damage takes some time to heal, and milk is made from
blood -- and at least partly from the c-section, but I got lucky since
suck reflexes kicked in during the week after he was born (in week 34)
and I was able to teach him to nurse from the breast. That was very
difficult since we were both hooked up to lots of cords and wires and
my incision hurt and I couldn't actually stand up the first three days
since I was on a heavy duty muscle relaxant, but as I said, I got
lucky.

In other words, there are a *lot* of obstacles to nursing with an early
preemie plus preeclampsia. My best wishes to your friend in overcoming
them.

And other mums who have been there with long term NICU babies - what can
I do to help and support from afar? Or when I get there, which I do
intend to do, once I can travel, but that will probably be weeks away.
Are there good books to buy for her? Resources? Things to tell her to
read online? What?

I'd highly recommend www.preeclampsia.org. My NICU had copies of the
LLL books for NICU preemies, so she may already have access to those;
they were reasonably helpful.

--
C, mama to three year old nursling

"Anonymama" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Ruth Shear wrote:

(I can't do any of these things. I'm still recovering from my own
delivery, marooned on a couch till my blood rebuilds itself. And how
soon can you fly with a newborn anyway? Leina is 3 weeks, 2 days - time
is flying)

I've heard you should wait until six months, but of course some newborns
who are being adopted fly home right away. Sorry I can't answer any of
your other questions!



Yep. We flew with Taylor when she was 10 days old, in January. She did
fine.
--

Jamie
Earth Angels:
Taylor Marlys, 1/3/03 -- Little Miss Director, who says, "No Mama, you have
to do it THIS way!"
Addison Grace, 9/30/04 -- My Little Communicator, who, when asked if she was
ready to take a nap, shook her head no and said in Baby Signs, "Night night
all done, downstairs."

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