Assisting and Giving Love

Unfortunately there are many erroneous ideas of how the parents should act with a premature child and even more so when the baby needs to be in a hospital. Some of these beliefs, supported by some “experts” just a few decades ago, affirmed that the intervention and contact with the baby on the part of parents, while the baby was in the incubator, was harmful. These days, fortunately things have changed, and it is known that early contact not only favors the sensation of security in the baby, but it also helps the baby physically, psychically and emotionally.

Without a doubt, what has influenced the most in this aspect have been the investigations done by psychiatrists and psychologists whose insistence in the separation between the baby and the mother contributed to the sensation of abandonment.

According to those studies, carried about in mid century, children that had suffered from a prolonged separation during the first months of life presented more difficulty at the moment of carrying out exchanges with their parents, causing situations of rejection that, in some occasions, implied on both sides.

What inspired this theory was not only the observation of the behavior of certain animals, such as chimpanzees, but also the observation of children literally abandoned in orphanages, that even rejected food or allowed themselves to die due to the emotional interferences product of abandonment, since the caretakers were not acting as maternal substitutes.  

This is one of the many reasons why it is vital that while your child needs to continue gestation in the incubator, you touch him or her, feed him, or assist him in his bath times.

This may imply that you will need to take courses about how to coordinate the movements to assist your baby, since you will need to learn how to stick your hands in the lateral door of the incubator, so don’t freak if at some point you feel extremely clumsy doing this.

It is also possible that during the first days of the baby’s birth, the fragile state he or she is in will condition you to not touch him or her anymore.

Just wait, little by little as you see that your baby is doing better, your fears will be reduced. Not in vain, almost all mothers and fathers also need of space and time when allowed to touch a baby for the first time. First we touch him or her with the tip of our fingers, then we gently caress the baby, and later on we become more confident to touch a leg or a hand, and finally rub his or her back and body. This reaction is evidence enough that separation also has an impact on adults.

The same exact thing happens with everything you will need to learn later. Up to the point where you are confident enough to change the baby’s diaper or feed him or her a bottle in the incubator. It is important each person follows his or her own process.