Þ   Premature Babies: Babies born before 37 weeks of gestation are premature and especially those born before 34 weeks are more prone to have problems. These babies may need to be in the nursery for a period of 1-8 weeks depending on the level of prematurity. These babies require special care in NICU including temperature control, respiratory support and nutritional support.

Þ    Respiratory Distress: Difficulty in breathing in new born may be because of prematurity or due to immaturity of the lungs, congenital or aspiration pneumonia or rarely structural congenital malformations of the lungs. Baby may need oxygen therapy with hood or may need to be supported with a ventilator (artificial life support system). Such babies need closed monitoring for first 5-7 days and are also given intravenous fluids, antibiotics and other supportive medications. Preterm babies may require a medicine called “Surfactant”, which is instilled in their lungs for better lung maturity.

Þ   Thermoregulation: Hypothermia or low temperature of the body is now found in most of the newborns. For resisting such situation, the babies should be properly covered with clothes specially covering the head, hands and feet. They are placed in incubators or radiant heat warmers specially designed to take care of their temperature and humidity needs. Those babies whose hands and feet are cold, but rest of body is warm are in cold stress which may be a sign of sickness and it also results in poor weight gain.

Þ     Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC):KMC is a technique where the mother keeps the baby close to her with skin to skin contact within her clothing. This helps the baby to maintain temperature and also helps to establish bonding between mother and baby and breast-feeding.

Þ   Nutritional Support:Though breast feeding is the best feed for all sick and premature babies alike, many of these babies are not in a condition to accept direct breast feeds. They are given intravenous nutrition initially and then expressed breast milk through orogastric tube, which goes from mouth to stomach. Later breast feeds are supplemented to fulfill the increased protein and calorie requirements of sick and preterm babies.

Þ   Retinopathy of Prematurity:Premature babies are again prone to cause blindness. It is due to developmental immaturity of the newborn eyes and is usually seen in babies and less; 1500 gms of birth weight. A small percentage of babies (6-10%) with ROP may require laser surgery. Frequent eye checkups are required from 4 weeks of age after birth to monitor the growth of retina to be continued till 42 weeks of gestation.

v  For the first six months of birth, the baby should be fed only with breast milk. No water, gripe water, tonics or any form of milk, nothing should be given till six months.

v  Babies pass watery stools after first 3-4 days of life especially after feeding which is normal for them. The baby should be well feed and make sure that they pass urine at least 8-10 times a day.

v  Surma, Kajal or any kind of eye darkener, Talcum powder, etc. should be avoided for babies. Even they need not want to have daily bath. For the first few days bathing should be strictly prohibited.

v  Baby should not be under covered or over covered. Cover them properly especially head, hands and feet.