In this five-part series, you will read about premature babies and the neonatal ward.

This is part 4 of our article series on premature babies. Children born before week 37+0 are called moderate to late preterm. These children spend their first weeks in the neonatal unit and are helped to develop as they should.

Both children and parents benefit from spending as much time as possible with each other, so you as a parent get to help care for your child in the neonatal unit. This could involve things like changing nappies, washing and weighing your baby. You can also be present for mealtimes and follow their development and get to know your child. There are also various types of carriers available from the ward, so that you can be close to each other and have skin-to-skin contact.

Children born around week 32-35 usually need to be cared for in a heated bed, where the baby lies on a warm water mattress which helps to keep them warm. The bed also has small bed nests that help the child feel safe. Above hangs a bed canopy that protects them against bright lights.

Your child may be old enough to move from the heat-regulating bed to a regular bed with a canopy, and it may also be possible for the whole family to live together in a family room.

Your child may still have difficulty regulating their heart rate and breathing. Their lungs are still immature and their child often needs some form of breathing support to breathe sufficiently deeply and effectively.

When your baby reaches 34 weeks, their brain is about two-thirds as big as if the baby had been born full-term. Their movement pattern is still relatively jerky and occurs in large movements, but your child is becoming increasingly mobile in general. Now your child can grasp things and lift their head. If there is too much going on in their environment, your child now has enough energy to be able to complain in the form of squirming using their arms and legs.

Babies born during these weeks may need help getting nutrition through a drip and/or a feeding tube from the nose down to the stomach. If your child is well and awake, they can now put small amounts of food in their mouth. As your child grows and develops, the nutritional drip can be phased out and your child then gets all their food through their stomach.

Many parents wonder how breastfeeding works when their baby is born too early. At this time, the mother can begin to stimulate her breasts and give the first drops of breast milk directly into her baby’s mouth if agreed to with the staff. Once milk production has been established, you can give taster portions of fresh breast milk when your baby is awake, because teaching your baby to eat is an important part of development. In addition to tube feeding, it may now be time for your baby to lie at your breast for the first time, in order to learn to breastfeed. If you don’t want to breastfeed, a baby bottle will be introduced instead. If you want extra support, there are staff in the department who have extra training in breastfeeding, so don’t be afraid to ask for help.

For short moments it may now be possible for a child to make eye contact with their parents, the pupil of the eye may react to light and their eyelids have thickened. Your child will still sleep approximately 80-90% of the day and during that time both growth and development take place. The coordination of breathing, sucking and swelling begins to take off.