Many babies entering NICUs have poor prognosis's BUT that is not to say that
they don't improve or survive.
I work in one of Australia's largest neonatal intensive care nurseries and
many of our babies are rated as critical from the word go but do end up
going home .Some of them have extremely poor prognosis's either from a
congenital/prematurity etc viewpoint but if a mother wishes to express even
when it is only going to be a short time we never discourage them.

This is at least one thing they have control over when they have a baby in
NICU ,it's something they can contribute towards their baby's care.

I can remember quite a few babies just recently that developed wings and
became little angels or went home for a short period before doing the same
thing.The majority of these mums expressed ,it helped them to deal with the
other problems they were facing because of their baby's
prognosis/condition.It simply felt right to them.

One mum expressed for months before her precious little one finally said
enough was enough ,she had heaps of frozen milk in our freezer that we had
to throw away afterwards which I found hard to do when I recalled all she
had gone through in obtaining this milk for her baby.

This mum appreciated the fact that we never told her to give up because her
baby wasn't going to make it and supported her in her wish to continue
expressing even when it was obvious the baby was just waiting for her
parents to say it was all right to say good-bye.

We are very pro breastfeeding in our unit and support whatever mum wishes to
do , it is not our place to tell a mother not to express , that is their
personal decision.


Anne clements RN EM BNS
Brisbane,QLD
Australia

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