Due to a lack of intensive care cots my twin boys were transferred to Mercy Hospital for Women several hours after they were born… and so my journey as a premie Mum and my relationship with Mercy and, indeed, The Featherweight Club began.   I joined The Featherweight Club five years ago as a way of giving back to the Mercy and the amazing staff who had taken such good care of my sons.  Also, I wanted to try to make it just a little bit easier for the parents, in particular the Mums, who were travelling on the rollercoaster ride of the NICU and Special Care Nursery.

I had never volunteered before and had no idea what to do or where to start, so I simply turned up to a meeting. There I listened to all of the important things that The Featherweight Club wanted to achieve and knew that I wanted to be involved.  In the process I connected with other Mums who I found I had a lot in common with even though each of our stories were so different.  Sometimes I’ve had the time to help out a lot, at other times not so much, however with all that The Featherweight Club wants to achieve I try to put aside time to do whatever I can, when I can.

Apart from The Featherweight Club, I am involved in various volunteer roles including being on the Committee for our local (rural) kinder, helping out at my youngest son’s Playgroup and of course at my older two’s school. Coming from a professional sales career I had never imagined I would be doing any of this… but then I never imagined I would have given birth unexpectedly at 25 weeks, either!

A major motivation for the Club when I first joined was to develop a Premie Playgroup.  This was due to feedback from many Mums of their experiences with the traditional Mother’s Group that Maternal and Child Health Nurses operate.  While these are very informative, and for some Mums this group is enough, the overwhelming response we received, and continue to receive, is that Premie Mums find “Mother’s Group” a very isolating experience and they tend not to continue going.  This in turn means that they are isolated even more.

My ongoing interests are related to supporting Mums, many who desperately need more help processing their birth-trauma, their grief, their anxieties, and advocating for their emotional needs.  I believe that if we addressed these issues as part of the hospital journey we might find that post-traumatic stress and depression are diagnosed earlier, lessened or possibly even prevented.

There is a lot to be processed after having a premature or sick baby in NICU and the Special Care Nursery.  We often hear Mums say that it suddenly hits them three, four, five months later – some not ‘till the baby has turned one.  By that stage, families are out of the hospital system and often Mums are simply left on their own to deal with their issues.  I hope that one day TheFeatherweight Club will be able to contribute in changing the way that the emotional well-being of Mums is handled and we believe that Premie Playgroups are an important part of helping in the healing.

Another motivation for me is that the “journey” doesn’t end just because baby is home and out of hospital.  Often this is just the beginning.  I believe we need to advocate for our babies / toddlers / children who have been born too early.  I can use my twins as an example, because despite doing very well in all of their follow-up assessments “issues” have slowly been appearing; becoming more prevalent as pre-school and now school have come around.

My twins have had school readiness issues, needing to do a second year of 4 year old kinder due to maturity issues which included an inability to socialise appropriately, complete tasks and concentrate – interestingly, all things they were able to do one on one in their follow-up appointments with the health professionals, but not able to do in a class environment.  One of my twins has had thorough assessments for Aspergers Syndrome and ADHD for which he shows some traits but not all and not enough to diagnose as having either.

My motivation for continuing with The Featherweight Club is knowing that there is a long way to go in providing parents with information regarding all sorts of issues that can arise from being born too sick or too early.  The Featherweight Club aims to contribute in ensuring that parents are given this information in a timely and appropriate manner so that they are equipped with the knowledge of how best to care for their child.