Miracle Birth Stories of Very Premature Babies

Parents of very premature infants, often shocked and panicked by the situation in which they find themselves, have until now had surprisingly few resources to consult. Now, with Miracle Birth Stories of Very Premature Babies, the information, support, and hope they so desperately need have been made available. Written by a prize-winning journalist and father of a now-thriving micro-preemie, this uplifting testament to hope is filled with parents' stories of their preemies and micro-preemies, complete with details of their struggles in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs), with harrowing series of life-threatening conditions, and with accounts of extraordinarily delicate and risky surgical procedures. This is the only book available in which parents, through interviews, speak directly to other parents about their common experiences with premature infants, and it is an invaluable guide to navigating the NICU journey. While the book presents sobering medical facts in a straightforward manner, author Timothy Smith's intention is to show a different side of extreme prematurity than the one most often presented by the media. Rather than dwelling on the relatively infrequent cases that result in severe handicaps and family hardship, the author introduces the readers to many examples of the positive, more common outcomes of prematurity: children who have struggled valiantly and successfully, often against all odds, to join families that continue to cherish them. Heartwarming yet realistic, these stories inspire even as they portray the families' attempts to cope with losing the typical birth experience, listening to insensitive remarks, going home without their babies, and communicating with medical professionals. This is a powerful, love-filled, personal resource for parents of tiny infants.

TIMOTHY SMITH is a veteran Michigan journalist and father of a micro-preemie daughter, Elizabeth./e After she was born in 1994, he wrote a number of acclaimed, award-winning newspaper articles about extreme prematurity.