Week 28 of your Pregnancy
Care for premature infants
If your baby is born between now and 37 weeks, he will be considered premature, yet able to survive outside your womb. The care of premature infants has made great advances in recent years. Many babies born early are thriving, growing, and developing normally. If your baby is born prematurely, it is important for you, the parents, to share in his care as much as possible. As your baby grows stronger, you will be able to touch and gently massage him, hold him, and even give him your breastmilk-all important ways of helping and bonding with your new baby.
Kangaroo Care
If your baby is born prematurely, your medical staff may suggest that you work with them to provide Kangaroo Care. KC is a simple but powerful method of easing premature babies into the world by keeping them skin-to-skin on their mothers’ chests as much as possible. The nearness of her scent, motion, and heartbeat seems to help many preterm infants stabilize their bodily processes and catch up to their full-term peers more easily.
Full-term infants also reap benefits from Kangaroo Care. Newborns who are held skin-to-skin against their mother’s chest within the first hour after birth have been shown to be calmer, cry less, have improved respiratory function, and begin breastfeeding soon and with more success than infants who have not been held skin-to-skin. A new study has shown that, when a mother cannot hold her baby immediately after birth, being held skin-to-skin by fathers or another adult offers the same benefits.
Your Baby’s Development
* Approximate length 14.5 inches, weight 2 to 2.5 pounds.
* Her bone marrow has taken over red blood cell production.
* Her eyes are opening and closing, and she is turning her head and practicing “looking” movements.
* She is very active, and movements can be felt felt inside and outside the abdomen throughout the day and night. The amount of movement varies but typically increases when you are sitting still or after a meal.
* The convolutions, wrinkles or “gyri” on the surface of the brain appear as it continues rapid growth and contains more brain cells.
Parenting Q&A
Q:I’ve heard a lot about postpartum depression, but is it possible to have depression while pregnant? I’m pregnant and already feeling blue. What’s going on?
A:Depression before or after giving birth to a baby affects roughly 1 in 20 women. While it is common, it is not considered an inevitable aspect of having a baby. Unfortunately for women experiencing depression before their babies are born, the symptoms of depression, such as fatigue, emotional changes, and weight gain, are part of pregnancy itself, so they mask the depression. Talk to your doctor about the way you are feeling. You can take steps to help yourself feel better.
Courtesy: University of Virginia Health System
Tags: infant, kangaroo care, postpartum depression, premature, week 28