Welcoming a preemie into the world can be a bittersweet time. While you want nothing more than to cuddle the new arrival, preemies are often whisked off to NICU for days, even weeks at a time.
This feeling is something that Glasgow parents Danielle Currie and Derrick McNaught know too well. Their twins, Sofia Grace and Grahame, were born 16 weeks early in December 2017.
Grahame died after 11 days, but Sofia Grace spent a total of 164 days in NICU before being let home. Throughout that time, the team at the Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow, sent them video updates of the tiny tots.
“Videos make the journey of being in NICU that little bit easier,” Danielle said speaking to The Huffington Post. “We got to see Sofia doing things for the first time like when she had her first bottle and there was one where her eyes were open and it was one of the first times we’d seen it.
“It was nice to show the videos to our family too, so they could see how she was doing. We also have videos of Grahame that we can keep forever and look back on.”
The videos were sent using an approved system called vCreate, used to please ease separation anxiety between new parents and premature babies. While the system comes at no cost to the hospital or the parents, the NHS encourage hospitals to find a charity or donor to help fund the system.
Knowing that they wanted to give back to the hospital, Danielle and Derrick set up a crowdfunding page to raise money for new iPads for nurses to send updates on the children.
The videos made such a difference to us. We know how it feels when you can’t be with your baby and you’re worrying all the time, so we wanted to help more parents feel reassured when they’re away from NICU,” Danielle explained. “The nurses would make fun videos sometimes and add music, so it would really cheer us up.”
Together they raised over £2,051, covering the cost of five new iPads.
“It felt wonderful when we reached our target of £2,000,” Danielle continues. “We’re so proud. It’s our way of saying thank you and giving something back to all the amazing staff who cared for our babies, and who we love.”
