Premature Babies

No. 1 MAY 2014

A premature baby is a baby who has a different beginning, who enters the world still unready. They’re so tiny that it’s hard to believe your own eyes or to look at each part of their body and see them as a real person. However, their will to live, their struggle for survival, their stubborn rebellion against fate are typical of truly exceptional beings, who have something of the heroic, in the broadest and most positive sense of the word. Starting by interviewing doctors, nurses and other neonatal health professionals from three hospitals and one maternity hospital (Santa Maria Hospital, Alfredo da Costa Maternity Hospital, Fernando Fonseca Hospital and Garcia de Orta Hospital), as well as different parents who have experienced prematurity (including the author of this book, the father of a premature baby girl who weighed 670 grams when she was born), this book describes the intense, dramatic and deeply human daily life in neonatal care units.