Cape Town - Twins who were born prematurely and underweight will soon experience their first Christmas with their parents after a rocky start to their lives.
Little did the parents know, the healing power of cuddles and kangaroo care would be a big part of their babies’ recovery.
“Our twins, Aryan and Arianna, were delivered early at 33 weeks and were small babies; one was under two kilograms and the other just over,” said the babies’ mother, Nourah Wax, 10 months after their birth.
The newborn boy and girl were having difficulty breathing and had to be transferred to the specialised neonatal unit at Netcare Garden City Hospital, Johannesburg.
“These are my first children, and it was very nerve wracking to be separated from them, as I had to remain in the hospital where I gave birth for another two days after they were transferred to Netcare Garden City Hospital. As soon as I was discharged, I went straight from one hospital to the other to be with my babies – I didn’t even stop off at home,” Wax said.
“I was so happy to see them, and their father, Antonio, and I was so anxious about our precious babies at first.
“The doctors and nurses encouraged us to hold them, ensuring that our skin touched our babies’ skin as much as possible as part of their treatment. In my heart, it felt so instinctively good to be so close to my babies.”
Kangaroo care, so named because it mimics the close contact of a mother kangaroo carrying her baby in a pouch close to her body, has particular benefits for premature or low birth weight babies, although it is recognised as being valuable for all mothers and babies in appropriate circumstances, said Verena Bolton, a highly experienced neonatal nurse and national coordinator of Netcare Ncelisa human milk banks.
The World Health Organization (WHO) supports kangaroo care,, continuous skin to skin contact between parents and babies in the first months after birth.
“Not only does kangaroo care enhance breastfeeding and bonding, it also has physiological benefits. Just as breastfeeding provides vital biological substances that help to ensure a healthy and normal digestive tract, skin to skin care ensures that a newborn baby’s skin matures and develops a healthy microbiome that contributes to the development of a strong immune system,” Bolton said.
“Kangaroo care has shown added benefits, including better temperature regulation for the baby and improved cardiac and respiratory function. When a baby is nursed in this way, they tend to have more stable heart rates, more regular breathing, stable blood pressure, and better oxygen saturation levels.”
Benefits for the mother include increased production of breast milk, and both parents feel the strength of that close early bonding experience, and the emotional wellbeing that comes with holding a child and giving them protective loving warmth.
The twins’ father Antonio was hands on from the beginning.
“My husband loved the kangaroo care; he thinks it was the best thing ever. With two babies, we wanted them both to have the full benefit of every kangaroo care session, and so while I was cuddling one baby, daddy would ‘kangaroo’ with the other,” Wax said.
At first the parents would have three kangaroo care sessions a day with their babies, and later Nourah was able to stay in the hospital for a week.
“That week, I would kangaroo with my babies all day, it was wonderful, and I could see them getting stronger every day,” she recalled.
After three weeks at hospital, including two weeks in the kangaroo care unit, Aryan and Arianna gained weight and their breathing improved, and they were able to go home for the very first time with their parents.
“Now it’s 10 months later, and I want to thank the hospital, the doctors and the nurses for looking after our babies so well. The nurses were so involved and handled them with such care that it was like they were our babies’ second family,” Wax said.
“We are really looking forward to a big family Christmas, and it will be a very memorable one for us because we will be celebrating our first Christmas as parents with our twins.”
Cape Times