There is nothing Earlybirds loves more than seeing one of its own thrive into toddler-hood. I think it’s because parents of premature and sick babies often spend so much time worrying about the future health of their children, are they reaching milestones as we’re expecting? Are they developing at the ‘right’ rate?
How lovely is it to see that 1) these worries are completely normal and 2) there can be light at the end of the tunnel.
So we’d love everyone to meet 15 month old Claire, who we recently asked to road test and model our Earlybirds for Bigger Birds collection.
Claire’s mum Kate was first introduced to Earlybirds by one of the midwives at the hospital where Claire was born at 34 weeks and five days gestation.
She was so small nothing else would fit. Kate loved the quality of the product and how it thought about all the needs of a prem baby: super soft on sensitive skin; enough space for feeding or breathing tubes; the right dimensions and size.
“I’d had rough pregnancies with Claire and her older sister Victoria. I suffered from hyperemesis both times, and while Tor was born three weeks early I didn’t really consider that I might be higher risk for having a prem baby,” Kate said.
“Despite all the morning sickness I still pushed through and went through a crazy nesting phase, doing seven loads of laundry the day before Claire arrived.
“My husband Anthony kept saying that I had plenty of time to get the housework done and not to rush, it’s funny how your body seems to know otherwise,” she said.
While Kate managed to get through the laundry, even after a rough night’s sleep and being woken with sharp pains, it still didn’t really click that she’d gone into labour.
“We just made it to the hospital in time. While I can laugh about it now, I remember when the nurses said I was having a baby that day, all I kept wondering was ‘would her ears be developed, would she be all there’, it didn’t even cross my mind that there was a host of other complications we could potentially come across,” Kate said.
“People with full-term babies seem to relax when they’ve had their 12 or 20 week scans. What they don’t realise is that it’s all out of your hands if they are born early and that it can change very quickly, simply because they haven’t been in the womb long enough to develop thoroughly,” she said.
Anthony nearly missed out on Claire’s arrival when he went to move the car, and Kate was not impressed when the nurses said he was “just getting a coffee”.
“Everything moved along so very quickly and when the nurses said that Anthony had gone to get a coffee I was pretty mad – he didn’t drink coffee!“What I later found out was that he went to move the car and when they couldn’t get hold of him on his phone they didn’t want to alarm me. He made it just in time,” Kate said.
While Kate was relieved to see that Claire’s ears and digits were all intact, her lungs were still very immature and she had to have CPAP to assist with her breathing.
“It was such a busy time, and stressful emotionally and physically. I was traveling to and from the hospital and I was really lucky that I had family and friends helping look after Tor.
“I was getting to the hospital first thing in the morning and wanting to stay to get as many breast feeds in as I could which meant I was leaving late at night and traveling 45 minutes each way.
“It all paid off though and Claire did extremely well. They said she might be able to go home in six to eight weeks, and she was able to come home at four,” Kate said.
As you can see by the pictures Claire is happy and healthy and looks great in the new range. We will post Claire’s reviews of the products in a few weeks.
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