One in 10 premature births in the United States have been linked to pregnant women being exposed to chemicals in extremely common plastic products, a large study said on Wednesday. The chemicals, called phthalates, are used to soften plastic and can be found in thousands of consumer items including plastic containers and wrapping, beauty care products and toys.

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Which were Lute's first thoughts about Vaggie when she was able to rest a little after giving birth?

She honestly wasn’t sure how she felt about Vaggie at first. She felt a sense of protectiveness, but wasn’t sure she could say she loved the baby?

While she’d never admit it, for the first week of Vaggie’s life, Lute mostly felt a combination of fear and guilt when she wasn’t just exhausted from caring for a newborn entirely on her own. Especially a slightly premature newborn.

And the prematurity was a big reason for the guilt, as the doctor did confirm her fear that the injury she sustained during the previous Extermination likely did contribute to her going into early labor, and to make matters worse, she was genuinely lucky that the labor wasn’t triggered even sooner.

Last Line

Tagged by @traveleorzea (just posting on this account instead of lookbluesoup //waves)

RULES: Post the last sentence you wrote (fanfic / original / anything) and tag as many people as there are words in the sentence.

“I thought about tellin’ ye.” She confessed. “More than once. But I wasn’t really showin’, an’ – well what did it matter? If I never had te trouble ye with it…” Her voice quivered over the still present fear, “Then –”  How many days had passed since her accident? She wasn’t entirely sure, “When I realized – what was happenin’, I thought… it’d be stillborn. So I’d sneak it all out trough the window, an’ – come back wit sometin’ to tease you with after it was settled. So you wouldn’ be suspicious.” “Sounds damn right foolish lookin’ back. But I didn’t think I’d… Or ye’d…” She tapered off, swallowing back another rise of hoarse bile in her throat. “An’ – Now it’s a proper mess.”

Tagging @seasaltandcopper @boggleoflight @ronqueesha @nora-jayne andd @thorneyes

No pressure ofc!

so. i was born extremely premature because my mom had weakness and shortening of the cervix. she couldn't keep me in her body, so they kept her kinda upside down for 2 weeks and then delivered me by c-section, at 25 weeks gestation.

for a long time, i never bothered to look into what causes cervical insufficiency, bc why would i. but just now, i learned: "A genetic disorder like Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome which may cause cervical weakness and can lead to cervical insufficiency" (source).

...ykno. there are times where i'm like, nah, me and my family may be hypermobile and have all these medical problems, but surely, we don't have EDS. but. uh. this is getting a bit hard to deny, now.

so yea, yet another EDS comorbidity no one teaches you about! go figure!

Reflections on Living into the Forth Decade with Cerebral Palsy(CP).

Flashback Friday This is another opportunity to read selected posts from the growing archive here at Rolling Backwards. For my old-time readers, I hope to spark a memory; if you’re new to my readership I want to offer the opportunity to read some of the posts you may have missed.  I have selected these posts myself, picking them because they still resonate with me, often many years later. There…

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Y'all wanna see my mom's baby pictures?

She was nearly 4 months early at 24 weeks

having been born disabled by extreme prematurity but grew up & treated like I was a normal kid...

has really fucked me up.

parents get mad at me for needing so many drs appointments & being sick more often & needing meds & costing more money that what they expected with a kid and their response was to treat me like i wasn't disabled

and now that i'm almost 20 i'm figuring out health issues that i've probably had for most of my life but the parents. Never cared to get them checked out or even believed i was in so much pain all the time

its likely that i have some sort of neuromuscular disorder, on top of already dx'd fibromyalgia & chronic fatigue syndrome

my body is deterioating in live-time and no one wants to believe that I could have these issues from birth.

no one want to have a disabled kid

because they dont see our lives as worth having

So I got my autism diagnosis today as well as once again a confirmation of some of my other disabilities, which is great cause now I have some clarity.

But it also came with the statement that I won't be able to do any of the jobs or studies I really want...

So now I'm really torn up cause at one point I'm happy I finally got a diagnosis, but on the other hand the fact that I very likely won't be able to do what I love for a living really feels devastating..

I already have a very hard time picturing a future for myself.. but without being able to do any of those things I really cannot see one at all.. and now I'm not really sure what to do..

💜💜 World Prematurity Day 💜💜

My preemie babies then and now.

I really thought I had dealt with the majority of the trauma from Harriet (and Fletcher’s) births. I have retold, particularly Hatt’s, so many times and retell it joking and laughing. I definitely know now that I had just completely dissociated myself from the emotions, not dealt with it.

Yesterday was a full week in hospital. I was coping, and then all of a sudden the girl in the bed next to me (2 bed room) was being prepped for an emergency C-section, had the neonatologists come in and discuss odds of 32 weekers (which Fletch was; a comment was very, very rarely 32 weekers need intubation. Fletch of course was that very, very rare case) and just the whole chaos that erupts during those times.

I was just boxed in, in the curtains, which is completely fine, she needed the attention and this wasn’t about me. It was so much more important she got the care than take away from her situation. I laid there trying so hard to block out the noise and the voices. The preop procedures. The hectic happening.

I just cried and cried. Then they wheeled her off to theatre and I just broke down. I started throwing all my belongings into bags, whilst sobbing and hyperventilating. I couldn’t be there. I didn’t want to be there. I NEEDED to not be there!

Aaron chose this moment to walk in for a visit. A midwife comes in as they’re trying to talk me off the ledge. Just crying and saying I can’t be there. I can’t handle the noises anymore. I can’t handle watching another baby of mine almost die.

They finally managed to talk me down long enough that I went down to the cafeteria and the quiet patient lounge where the noise wasn’t there, but I hadn’t left. Came back up and the patient was back from her C-section, and I went into full panic attack again because a student came in wanting to do my blood pressure. Being trapped in birth trauma when a lot focuses around BP and then wanting to inflate the cuff on my arm sent anxiety off again. I’d been having BPs done all week. No problem. Apparently PTSD around birth trauma doesn’t care on what you can normally handle in certain situations.

They were trying to get the doctors but it was going to be at least half an hour so we went back down to the quite patient lounge and had a cold drink and recentred.

We got back to the ward again after an hour and they wanted me to stay the night no matter what’s they were going to try and get a private room for me away from everything but couldn’t guarantee it. I was hysterical. Eventually enough had been stabilised that they ended up saying I could go home for the night, stay admitted, as long as I was back by 7am. I didn’t get home until 7pm, and had to leave again at 5am. My brain completely needed that reset though.

I was completely expecting to go back into the double room, and although I had anxiety over yesterday the reset of being home away from the hospital made me feel I could handle it. The midwives and doctors were phenomenal. I apologised so many times for my outburst yesterday. I was and am completely embarrassed. When I had got back this morning, they had legit found the quietest single room away from all the noise of the ward and set it up for me.

Hopefully today is just a day of tying up loose ends with tests they want done and then I can be discharged. With a lot of monitoring, but discharged.

Vaggie, in "Cradle Will Fall" was actually born a little over six weeks early, due in part to the fact that Lute had actually sustained some minor abdominal injuries in the Extermination that had happened less than a month before the meeting with the Morningstars that she offered to attend in Adam's place.

Thankfully, when the doctor that Sera insisted be called to examine both Lute and the baby when she learned that Lute had given birth came and looked them over, he determined Vaggie to be generally healthy, though obviously very small and with some issues maintaining her own body temperature. The issues with body temperature were actually part of why Lute did a lot of baby-wearing during the first year of Vaggie's life - not only did it let her hold the baby while still giving her free hands to do other things, but it allowed her to keep Vaggie close to her, and help keep her warm thanks to sharing body heat.

I was born 10 weeks premature and I haven’t seen any grown up premies talk about how being premature affected them as they grew up. I had a crushing realization earlier this year that most of my extended family will never fully view me as the young adult i’ve become. To most of them, i’ll always be the 1 lb 5 oz ‘miracle grandbaby’ and I’ve been a spectator of sorts for a good chunk of my first two years on this planet. Its really weird knowing that everyone vividly remembers a specific time in your life EXCEPT for you.

We have plenty of photos, photo albums, some of the little diapers and outfits and other assorted baby things in the attic. We even have my trache from when it was removed and I received the scar that goes across my neck. All I have to remember that time in my life are the handful of surgery scars on my body. I’ve always been told that I am a fighter and had so much strength and resilience and honestly I started to get sick of hearing it. I’m 20 and I STILL hear about my strength and resilience from a time in my life that gave me surgery scars to remind me of everything I’ve gone through.

When family friends or extended family tell me how strong and resilient I am , I just want them to see me for who I am today rather than the teeny tiny baby I used to be. It got to the point where I started to invalidate my own feelings and experiences because I went through so many surgeries as a baby and spent the first seven months of my life in the NICU at John’s Hopkins hospital in Maryland. My mental health has been rocky this year nd i’ve been battling depression for the past few months. I went through so many surgeries and only had the scars as souvenirs for surgeries that gave me the chance to see, breathe, speak and have a chance at a normal life despite the extraordinary experiences that brought me into the world and got me this far.

I’ve been battling with my own mental health issues for the last 4 months and experienced suicidal thoughts on a regular basis. I’d tell myself something along the lines of ‘I’ve been in worse situations that were life or death and I’ll get through it.’ I always felt like the strength and resilience people always brought up when I was around was a way for me to put on a brave face and keep my guard up so I can keep the image of the miracle grandbaby that was known as a fighter, an inspiration and a gift from god. It kind of felt like a publicity thing from time to time but my grandma and grandpap didn’t do it for their own egos, they did it to show that miracles can come true and bring incredible, inspiring things into the world.

Now when I see pictures of premies and super premies my heart breaks a little bit. I know what its like to grow up with so many people taking about you and people you didn’t even know were praying for you to survive. I know most people meant well but after hearing a lot of the same stuff for years, I started to feel like a sought after commodity. Honestly, its degrading, and insulting. I was born ten weeks early but that shouldn’t be the only important, defining thing about me. I’m so much more than the tiny 21oz baby that came into the world 10 weeks early in Spring 2002.

I rarely tell people about being premature because I’m 20 years old and a college student. Being referred to as the ‘miracle grandbaby’ lead to me putting unnecessary pressure on myself. My immediate and extended family saw me as a miracle and hearing it countless times growing up, i felt like I had something to live up to, regardless of how old I was, partially because I was my grandpap’s favorite grandkid, and was often referred to as being mature for my age by family members and family friends on both sides. I feel like I grew up fast in a sense that i had the ‘miracle grandbaby’ association following me around from day one. I know some people will always view me as the 1lb 5oz oz miracle baby and I know I won’t be able to change how some people perceive me, which doesn’t really bother me, but I REALLY wish more people would see me as the young adult I’ve become. I’m still treated like a child by my grammy even though I’m 20. She refuses to let go of when I would spend weekends at her house and we’d go out for dinner and a movie. It’s honestly pretty frustrating and she definitely infantilizes me even though I’m a capable young adult now. I can practically hear the tone of voice she’d use when she talks to me. I know people mean well when they say I’m strong and resilient but as I get older it feels more like a backhanded compliment than anything else. I feel like I’ve always had to act stronger than I really felt and had expectations following me around.

My grammy (mom’s side) definitely saw posting and writing about me was a relatively easy way to get attention and she tried to make things all about her while I was clearly uncomfortable sitting on the sidelines as she’d post pictures or write about me for attention. For my 16th birthday I received a ridiculous amount of birthday cards from family friends of hers and people I didn’t even know. It didn’t bother me during the first week but it went on for almost a month. As I kept receiving cards from people I didn’t even know, I became more uncomfortable with the situation. It was clearly about her wanting to show off how many people know about my story and prayed for me as a baby and the fact that she did it knowing that using a milestone birthday to show me how she used my life story to gain sympathy and attention and so many people still wrote to me. she uses me as a topic of conversation to get praise and attention and it’s obvious that she refuses to view me as the young adult i really am and focus on stuff that I have no memory of from 20 years ago. It’s insulting, degrading, and selfish.

I want to be my own person and I know being a super-premie is an important part of my life story, but it happened so long ago and I feel no need to hold on to the months I spent in and out of the hospital, but I take pride in my surgery scars. I’ve always liked my surgery scars and thought they were cool, plus they’re a unique reminders of how far I’ve come in the last 20 years.

I really hope this post helps to generate a discussion with former premature babies or even parents of premies because I want to know what challenges other premies face and how the technology used to care for premature babies has evolved, unfortunately there isn’t a whole lot of research or reading on grown up premies so I’m curious to see if/when a discussion starts. I know premies have unique and sometimes frightening experiences early on in life but every premie baby’s story is unique and I want to hear about more people that have little miracle babies like me.

Este fanfic esta en español, simplemente lo hice por que me gusta el kink, si gustan pueden leerlo

LEAN LOS TAGS

So where do i begin? Lets go back to the start at 9.50pm on the 1st of February. This is the date my beautiful boy was born and first entered the world. To say this was a rocky start is putting this lightly. Thomas’s due date was the 1st of April so he was 8 weeks premature and weighed 3.2 pounds. Thomas entered the world and was straight away faced with challenges and obstacles to over come. He was on oxygen, he had jaundice, he was struggling to cope with his early enter into this world. Thomas was in hospital for a month plus and as a new father this was challenging but fuck that, imagine being this small and struggle to face and complete the most basic things. Thomas went through multiple challenges, oxygen, vitamins and basically struggled through it all. He was then diagnosed with hydrocephalus and at just 3 weeks old went through brain surgery, to say my baby went through challenges is to put it lightly. The only thing that kept me going was my love for him. Imagine seeing your small baby in a ambulance so small? To see him struggle fight at so young, imagine how that felt? Imagine the pain.. imagine being scared to hold him because your scared youll break him cause how tiny he was, your beautiful proudest moment and just being scared and worried. No sleep. Being at hospital 12 hours a day whilst holding down a job. Was it all worth it? 100 percent, to see my baby succeed thrive and be the beautiful boy he is today.

Sometimes human babies are born too early. Does this also happen among angels?

I won't be answering this in character, since I don't generally think about this when working on an au and do not condone this kind of question when you don't know what the owner of a blog has been through in their real world life. Premature birth can be traumatic and dangerous, and you should not be asking a complete stranger on the internet about this unless they've specifically stated it's okay to ask.

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In general, the angels of my Mumthael AU have incredibly varied pregnancy durations due to their individual light reserves. Purely angelic pregnancies can be anything from three months in Sanctuary's time onwards - an angel who has spent a lot of time in Pandemonium, for example, would have a significantly longer pregnancy than an angel who stays in Heaven. So 'too early' is incredibly subjective, hard to define here, and is not something I've thought about nor do I want to.

There is the possibility for the angelic version of miscarriage ('extinguishing'), but again, this is something I will not be discussing or covering in the fic or any asks due to its sensitive and generally traumatic nature. I have a term for it simply in case it gets mentioned in passing by a character, and that is all.