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Just One Thing

The Mumologist
Dr Emma Svenburg aka @mumologist has launched an amazing series called Just One Thing. I was invited to talk about my experiences as a NICU Mum and what I would want other new parents to know. Below is a snippet of Just One Thing- NICU. 

'Things go wrong.
I wish someone had told me it isn’t always picture perfect.
It isn’t the snap shot you see on the front of the glossy parenting magazines.
Have you ever seen a new mum, bedraggled from the birth and worried for her baby’s life looking at her child wired up to an incubator on the front cover?
You can sometimes find yourself in a world no one warned you about.
You can find yourself in the Neo Natal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) watching your fresh out of the oven bun fight for his life.
This isn’t to scare you, but if I had been informed before I gave birth then perhaps this all wouldn’t have been such a shock.
Perhaps if I was offered some help, some support I wouldn’t have broken down as much as I did.
Why don’t we talk about this in Ante- Natal classes? Midwife appointments? Why are we as expectant parents not educated about what could potentially happen when things go wrong?
Why are we not as NICU parents assessed mentally at the time? With follow ups afterwards? (Funding? Government policy?)
I became a shell of myself, I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder 18 months after discharge.
It is not deemed as socially acceptable to speak of bad birth experiences, of when things make people feel slightly uncomfortable, like an ill baby.
 If we speak about these experiences, then perhaps it will help others in the future. It will break down the walls that we have around these seemingly ‘taboo’ subjects.'
Read the rest of the post and the others in the series by clicking here.

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