FORMER PATIENTS AND their families who spent time in the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in the Coombe Hospital returned to the hospital today to mark World Prematurity Day 2013.

The Gathering of Graduates, sponsored by Friends of the Coombe, gives those who spent time in the NICU the opportunity to reunite with those who looked after them during their difficult first months.

Special care

Over 9,000 babies are delivered in the hospital every year, with over 1,000 infants admitted to the neonatal special care unit.

Babies born before 37 weeks, and in some cases at 24 weeks or even less, are classed as being premature and many require specialised care in the NICU.

Affecting numerous families across Ireland, premature birth is a frightening time for all involved, parents in particular, with many babies require lengthy stays in the hospital’s specialised unit.

Clinical Nurse Manager and organiser and of the event, Mary O’Connor said:

Newborn babies are very small and fragile but it can be heart-breaking to see the vulnerability of a baby born early.

The NICU is a special unit within the hospital, and it is immensely rewarding to see the babies we cared for now thriving as healthy adults and children.

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