Topics Discussed This Month
Bonding with a preemie

Everywhere we turn, we are bombarded with the message of how important those first few minutes/hours/days etc, are in the development of children.  How do preemie parents cope when that post birth bonding moment is ripped from our realm?

Mara reasurres, "I also worried about not being able to hold the babies very much in the early weeks. I think that it had as much to do with my feeling like a mother (or wanting to, anyway) as it did their need to be held. Even if you were unable to be near your baby for hours or even days, remember that humans do not have "critical periods" for attachment in the same way that other animals do. We always think of "bonding" as those little ducklings that "imprinted" on the first thing that they saw (which in one experiment, was the experimenter!). Humans aren't like that. We have a loooong period in which to form strong, loving, intimate relationships with our babies. Remember, also, that a key element in parenting is what we call attunement. That means being tuned in to the baby's needs at a given moment in time. In-utero, the baby was held and rocked in a wet, weightless, dark environment filled with muffled sounds and slight, filtered light. With a critically-ill baby, touch may not be the most helpful or soothing way of communicating your presence. Your voice or merely your scent is enough. As the baby stabilizes and is able to tolerate -- and even begins to need touch, that's the time to initiate touching and holding. I think that one thing that happens in a premature birth is that we struggle with how to be as parents! We long to hold our babies because that's what we dreamed about and that's what we believe parents "should" do. We want to provide our babies with THE BEST that we can offer. And then we're faced with an early delivery, a traumatic series of losses, and a baby that doesn't look or act anything like what we expected. The dream of cradling your newborn, skin-to-skin in your arms is lost. And everything we've been taught about early bonding is called into question. And we wonder if they have gotten the best that they can get. I think that if you are tuned in as best you can to your baby, and you provide the amount of touch (and other indicators of your presence and love) that he/she is ready for, you are forming a sensitive, "tuned-in" attachment with your baby. You ARE providing him with THE BEST -- for him at that moment in time! To hold a baby that can't yet manage that amount of stimulation wouldn't provide either of you with what you need. It's a more gradual process...and one that will lead to a fine attachment between you and your baby."

Diane writes "When the relationships between parent and infant (primarily mothers but not to exclude fathers) was first studied, it was thought that bonding only happened in the first moments of life. This theory has since been disputed, but this is where preemie parents often struggle. Those moments have been taken away from us and we wonder how it will affect our attachment with our preemie. Studies have shown that there is a slight increase in the possibility of problems with attachment with preemies. But this is only due to the trauma of the experience and problems with sorting it out, or with extreme difficulty with very medically fragile infants.  It's important to remember that attachment is a process that occurs over a lifetime. The most important pieces are in the first year of life, not in the first moments. As Mara said the most important thing preemie parents can do is to tune into your preemie and their needs. The more you know and understand your preemie, the stronger your relationship will be. This can be difficult sometimes and an occupational therapist or someone else that understands your preemie can help. Some of the problems come from the fact that parents have a harder time reading cues from preemies. The cues are more complicated than from term infants. Preemies are often slower to respond with positive feedback."