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Home from NICU - anxiety

hi, we've recently had our little boy discharged from NICU following a two week stay after he was born at 34 weeks. He had a number of tests to check for a few things which all came back fine. Ultimately heS been given a clean bill of health.

weve been home for three days now and my anxiety levels have gone through the roof. im terrified that something has been missed, or that he's not ready to be home - I'm constantly worried and its stopping me enjoying having my little boy home.

im going to speak to our outreach nurse later today but I wondered if anyone had gone through anything similar? As much as I hated being in the NICU ward with all of their monitors and wires, now we're home without them I can't relax...

Replies

  • Hi. Firstly congratulations on the birth of your baby. And for finally being home. I know how long nicu days can be. My little girl was born at 32 weeks in May 2016 and spent 5 weeks in nicu. The anxiety is pretty crazy when you first get home. You hate the monitors whilst there, and miss them when they are gone. 

    Firstly be reassured that feeling is perfectly normal. I found that talking to other nicu mum's on Facebook and meeting up with other nicu mum's that I had met there helped. It helped me realise that my baby was okay. You may find that your nicu does meet ups/coffee mornings etc. And they may well have a Facebook page. 

    If you feel comfortable, posting on prem baby forums and pages helps too. You can get even more experience. And you can voice how you are feeling, and know you aren't alone. It can feel like you are when you are sat up at 2 o'clock in the morning just watching them sleep, checking they are breathing. 

    If you are ever worried about anything to do with your baby though, don't hesitate to phone drs/out of hours/nicu advice line. Generally they will never turn down seeing a prem baby, even just for reassurance for the parents. 

    Sorry, I have realised I am waffling on a bit haha. But very good idea to talk to nurse/health visitor. Knowing there is direct support for you there will help ♡ 

    Congratulations again. And good luck xx 

  • CONGRATS on the birth of your baby. I had my beautiful baby girl born 35 weeks and 4 days she spent 24 days in hospital scbu at margate and st Thomas's at London. Seeing your baby with all those machines making those noises and all the wires and she had a feeding tube too was hard. Then when we got home it was hard as we had been so use to all those machines and wires and the help of someone always being there if we needed them. What I struggled with for a bit was feeding her and her bringing up bits of milk which perfectly normal but it took me back to in hospital before she had op (blockage in intestines) and I did get upset on occasions. Mentioning it to my hv defo helped. Do they have some sort of service in your area where you can go through everything that happened and why? Just when I mentioned my feelings to my hv she told me bout a service called birth after thoughts. I am currently waiting for them to contact me about an appointment where they go through your labour and everything that happened and why and answer any questions you may have. Also when we finally went home staff at margate said if you have any questions just give us a call. I have visited once to take some clothes in and take them a card and chocolates but part from that been ok. Do you think maybe if you could go back and talk to one the staff that may help. Maybe just bit of reassurance 

  • And yeah talking on pages like this to people who have been through the same thing im sure could really help. Also sounds like you have bit of postnatal depression to me maybe a bit of counselling will help too. I had 4 counselling sessions over last couple months which really helped me as one the issues I had was that I blamed myself for her condition on occasions. She had sepsis as I had sepsis from an infection due to my waters braking at 35 weeks but not going into labour. Waters got infected caused sepsis for both us and that set off labour. But I blamed myself as has uti bout a week prior to that so was thinking it was to do with that but it was nothing to do with it. I had other issues I had to talk about too that having a baby brought to the front of my mind that id always blocked out. Also blamed myself for her condition as I was the one who carried her (she had blocked intestine) but it was no ones fault could be genetics just one those things no one could do anything about it. Im sure your baby is all good and doing well sure your a fab mum. The hospital would have done all the checks required and woudlnt have sent baby home if not ready im sure. But if need to call drs thats what they there for your baby was early so they prob know your bound to have extra concerns. If they dont understand or want to help well they not very good drs 

  • I'm sure you probably won't see this now as I started this thread over  a year ago - but thank you for your replies!

    The day after I started this thread my son was admitted back to hospital and ended up having surgery on his intestines a week later. He had a growth that meant he had to have a section of them removed.

    Obviously in the craziness of going back to hospital and surgery/recovery i totally forgot about posting this so never replied! He is healthy now and I'm happy to say eventually the anxiety went away, but it looks as though my initial worry about him when we came home was actually well placed as the things I thought I was being paranoid about turned out to be real problems! Despite being told by the gp I was just a worried first time mum...Just goes to show sometimes we need to trust our instincts!

    Thanks for taking the time to reply x

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