When I went into labour at nearly 41 weeks, I had no reason to think my baby would be admitted to NNU. I’d had a very straight forward pregnancy and the thought of NNU hadn’t even entered my mind. I had attended a hypnobirthing weekend and NCT classes and there was no mention of what happens when a baby is born poorly or NNU so it was a real shock.

Shortly after my son was born he was having difficulty breathing and it turned out that he had very high infection levels. I was taken to theatre for my own complications and while I was there he was admitted to NNU. I wasn’t able to go and see him for 12 hours, and it was such a shock seeing him in an incubator with oxygen and feeding tubes. I also felt out of place because my son was so much bigger than the other babies.

I found I needed quite a lot of emotional support while I was on the unit, and I think that was partly because it was all so unexpected. We spent a week on the unit before we were able to go home, and it was a short but very intense stay, and an experience that will never leave me.

I am now a member of the SNUG Parent Panel and I’m really passionate about making sure there is support for all parents including full term parents. I am also passionate about making sure that parents who want to breastfeed are given all the support and tools they need – after my son was tube fed for a week, it was really difficult to establish breastfeeding and it took 8 weeks before we finally made it work, but I ended up breastfeeding him for 22 months which I never would have thought was possible when we were in hospital!

More news

SNUG Princesshay Christmas Tree 2024

SNUG Princesshay Christmas Tree 2024

We were so excited to be chosen as one of Princesshay's Charity's to join in their display of Christmas Trees! We had SO much fun coming up with adorable and impactful ideas for decorations for these trees, and even more fun bringing all these...

read more