Mothers First Reactions to a Premature Baby

As a premature mother, it is possible that during the initial contact with your son you experience contradictory sensations such as:

• You feel like taking care of your baby but you are afraid of hurting him.
• You feel like protecting the baby, even if it is just rubbing him with your hands inside the incubator, and imagine that your baby does not like what you are doing because you are doing it wrong.
• You may caress the baby, and become scarred if the baby moves, or stretches a leg or arm thinking you are doing something wrong.

Their fears and contradictions are due in part that mothers as well as fathers of premature babies go through different phases until being able to assume that the baby was born under different circumstances. It is normal to first deny reality, then become angry at it, impotent, or fall into deep depression.

On the other hand since all premature babies tend to have a particular conduct due to their small size, it is normal that on occasions the emotional state of the parents fluctuates according to the way the baby acts.

In first place, because it is not weird that when faced with an extremely premature baby, during the first days of the baby’s life the parents will feel impotent since the baby will go on to being in a lethargic state most of the time, in other words, asleep and will not move.

However, when the baby grows it’s possible that his or her behavior will change to being the exact opposite and that the baby is too nervous and restless. During this new stage, most parents don’t know if the baby acts this way because he or she is reacting to the large amount of stimulus that come from the environment and of which the baby cannot defend him or herself from.

If your baby seems to be mad and becomes rigid, and a few moments later begins to cry or yell or moves in a abrupt way that is too powerful for his or her age, this can be an indicator that he or she feels overcharged with sensorial stimulus such as light, sounds, tactile impressions etc.

For this reason, when a baby reacts abruptly, almost every mother and father of premature babies feel helpless and worry. These are after all certainly not the reactions a parent expects from a child when they are by their side. However, when this happens you should study the way he manifests the over stimulation and this will give you an idea of what his or her reaction will always be like when he or she does not like something.

Keep in mind, that while there are children that react as if they were nervous, there are others to the contrary that can act in a different way, blocking themselves and not giving any type of response.

In either case, what you must keep in mind is that not knowing about the origin of the baby’s reactions is what will condition the way you will react to him.

Seeing a non-active child may cause the mother to have the idea that everything that is occurring to the baby is because she has not been capable of carrying out full term in her pregnancy. And may even cause her to act as if the nurses and doctors are the real parents of the baby.

This fantasy, although strange, is common in a lot of people that have premature babies, whether they are conscious of it or not. When a mother does not assume the responsibility of taking care of her son or daughter, after having been separated from him or her, the fear of causing the child some type of harm almost always makes her hold on excessively to her alternating emotions and the postpartum depression is often times gone through in an even more traumatic way.

In the same way, when a mother is forced to leave her little baby in the hands of strangers, doctors and nurses, but whom have the necessary tools and equipment to take care of the baby so he or she can survive, it is easy to fall into the self deceit that “they are, and I’m not” the ones in charge of satisfying all the needs of the baby, including the affective and emotional ones, by which the experience of the delivery loses its meaning. The internal message is not “I have suffered so he can live” but rather, “My suffering is not worth it, and neither am I”.

This is why probably one of the best ways to get rid of these “demons” consists in gradually dedicating to the attention in the affective way of the baby such as providing the baby with affection, contact, feedings and hygiene, rather than focusing on the medical aspects.

The posterior behavior of the baby will show you that he feels the same need of being near you; of being touched, hugged, fed and cared for by his parents, although right now the baby is only able to express it through a more relaxed conduct.

Later on you will notice that your baby will let you notice his or her progress by widening this non-verbal language a little more for example by suctioning in a rhythmic and continual way, a favorable adaptation to the sleep rhythm and the baby’s capacity to console and auto satisfy himself – such as by sucking on his or her thumb – however, right now it is too early for this, so for now the wisest thing is that when you are together the parents take care of thinking until what point of communication with you son has begun, and although you will need to do some adjustments en the successive stages of the baby’s infancy, of his adolescence and your life in common.