‘Baby H arrived at 26wks, 14 weeks early. She was so tiny, we were so scared. My husband and I didn’t have a clue what to expect and what to do, she looked so fragile and had so many tubes and wires attached to her. The first few days were a bit of a haze, the NICU nurses took care of everything. But as the days rolled by they encouraged us to get more involved with her cares, and spoke to us about how we could connect with our baby girl even though she was in an incubator. It was a gentle, hands-on education – something we were scared to do – we always felt it best to leave it to the expert nurses and staff – but they taught us to be the experts in caring for our precious baby with confidence. We’re so grateful to them for guiding and supporting us every step of the way. They would patiently answer the same questions over and over. The parent classes were always really useful and informative; cares for baby, positioning, bathing. We had an opportunity to meet with specialist fields; consultant, psychologist, pharmacist, dietician, lactation. Thanks to the IFDC programme we soon stopped feeling helpless and instead felt really empowered. The team not only listened to us, they genuinely valued our input and observations of our baby girl to help tailor her care. By the time we transferred back to our local hospital, we felt really positive and confident about caring for our baby- even the staff could tell there was something different about us!’
