Mums and babies celebrate kangaroo care in the Ulster Hospital's neonatal unit

Transcript

00:00 I'm very appreciative and certainly Tiny Life are the ones that have donated it

00:05 and they have been a massive advocate during this journey of Esme and I

00:12 and have been very supportive so very grateful. It's nice to know that there's

00:19 support out there for parents of premature babies and certainly the

00:26 Kangaroo Care has helped us through in more ways than one.

00:33 Today we're celebrating Kangaroo Care Awareness Day in the Ulster neonatal unit.

00:37 This celebration is celebrated every year on the 15th of May and we like to

00:42 celebrate it with the families in the unit and we have lots of donations from

00:46 families that have been through the unit and are aware of the importance of skin

00:50 to skin and they quite often will give back to the unit so we've got lovely

00:54 joey bands to facilitate skin to skin and we've been giving them out to all

00:58 the families and encouraging skin to skin which helps with bonding, helps with

01:02 milk supply, promotes relaxation and deep sleep for the babies and it's just an

01:08 all-around lovely thing to do with your baby that's been born prematurely and

01:12 has come into the unit. The minute you get your baby on your skin and you see

01:16 their heart rate come down, their oxygen saturations improve, it just increases

01:23 and enhances that bond especially when knowing that they should still really be

01:27 in your tummy and I credit that skin to skin that we did every day for two hours

01:33 a day and I credit that to how well she's done and the thought of prospect

01:40 of home in the next week, I credit Kangaroo Care to that. I think it's

01:46 really important within the unit we try to celebrate all the little milestones

01:50 throughout the year, it is very important to us here at the Ulster Neonatal

01:54 Unit and you'll always see that we take every little celebration and try

01:59 to turn it into something huge for our families.

02:03 (gentle music)