‘My beautiful girl will make a difference to lives of others’
New incubators at the University Hospital of Wales are designed to provide a safe and healing environment for a baby. Here, one heartbroken mum explains how the new piece of kit could have helped her precious daughter
Incubators are a vital piece of lifesaving equipment in a neonatal unit. They maintain a critically ill or premature baby’s body temperature, something their bodies are unable to do for themselves, and keep them protected from infections, to which they are extremely prone.
Because they are such vital pieces of equipment, the Noah’s Ark Charity has managed to raise enough money to buy five state-of-the-art incubators for the new neonatal unit at the University Hospital of Wales.
Called Babyleos, the incubators house a range of innovative new features to provide a safe and healing environment for the baby: 1. If access is needed, the lid raises gently above the incubator on an arm and a radiant heater turns on automatically, allowing the doctor and nurse to care for the baby or carry out procedures without the baby getting cold. 2. Built-in weighing scales mean the baby can be weighed without the need to take him or her away from the comfort and warmth of his or her environment. The readings are kept and trends can be looked at on screen.
Not moving the baby enables the calories that are being given to the baby to be solely used for growth purposes and not used up through distress or trying to maintain temperature. This also prevents the loss of any precarious lines in the baby’s veins or breathing tubes which could otherwise become detached. 3. A bed that pulls out a little way from the machine. Combined with an adjustable height range, it allows the parents to get as close as possible for a while without barriers between them and their baby.
The heated mattress also means that the parents can have close contact with their baby for longer. 4. Reduced noise levels within the incubator, which are monitored to make the environment less stressful to the baby.
Selected recordings, such as the parents’ voices, music or heartbeats can be played in the compartment, which the Babyleo limits to womb-level noise. 5. The display can be put into a family view which looks less complicated, and displays the baby’s status in a nonclinical way.
Trend information can also be transferred between incubators via a memory stick when it needs cleaning.
Baby Annie Pearson spent her entire life in an incubator at the University Hospital of Wales’ neonatal unit.
Annie was born with a rare condition called Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome, a developmental disorder that affects many parts of the body.
After her death, at just seven weeks old, her mum Kirsty decided to embark on a year of fundraising to purchase one of the new incubators as part of the Tiny Lives Appeal.
She set up a fund in her daughter’s name called Annie’s Rainbows. It has long exceeded its initial fundraising target.
Kirsty says: “Without the incubator Annie had, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to spend almost seven weeks with my beautiful girl. Those are precious memories that will never fade.
“There is nothing that can ease the pain of losing your child – not time, not money or memories – all you can do is learn to live with it.
“I have found it comforting to know that there will be an incubator in the new NICU [Neonatal Intensive Care Unit] because of Annie.
“My beautiful girl will make a huge difference to the lives of others and I could not be more proud of her.” This is what Kirsty thinks of the features on the new Babyleo...
Because the weight she was putting on was so miniscule, they tried to minimise her “activities” so Annie wouldn’t burn calories unnecessarily.
Ordinarily, Annie was allowed out of her incubator for one hour a day for a cuddle. I lived for those hours.
But I wasn’t able to have a cuddle with her on “weigh days” because it would have meant her burning even more calories.
When Annie was weighed she needed to be stripped of all wires and monitors before being moved on to a portable weigh machine, weighed, moved back again and reattaching her wires and monitors.
Now I fully appreciate that Annie probably burned a minimal amount of calories while being weighed but, when every calorie counts, there are none left for cuddle time.
The weigh feature in the new incubators will allow premature babies to do what they need to – grow – while still being monitored closely.
Perhaps most importantly of all, if cuddles are on the cards, a weigh day won’t stop those precious moments from happening. With Annie’s condition, it was important that she put on weight to be able to have the much-needed surgery on her heart.
This meant that she was only allowed out of her incubator for cuddles for just one hour a day. Although these moments were precious and very much loved, it still didn’t feel like enough.
For the rest of the time I sat with Annie, I used to sit with my hand