Chase and Lily?s lives got off to a bit of a rocky start after their mom, Devon MacDonald, went into labour with them when she was 30 weeks and four days pregnant. ?Both had to be resuscitated, and then they were intubated,? recalls MacDonald. The next few weeks were a roller coaster, as one issue after another plagued the fraternal twins. ?When Lily started doing better after 10 days, Chase started not doing well,? she says.
When a baby is born early, his bodily systems are immature, and he?s exposed to things that he wouldn?t be in utero, putting him at risk for a number of health issues. But, says Eugene Ng, a neonatologist and chief of newborn and developmental paediatrics at Toronto?s Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, ?prematurity is a big spectrum.? Ng explains that babies born as early as around 23 weeks can survive, but babies born before 37 weeks are considered premature. ?The likelihood and severity of any complication would decrease as the baby is born more and more maturely,? Ng adds.
Here are five of the most common problems that can arise in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and beyond:
Breathing support

?Lung issues are the first, immediate thing we will see from the time of birth,? says Ng. When a baby is born early, especially before 30 weeks? gestation, his lungs might not be ready to breathe on their own. Doctors have two ways of dealing with this: one is by intubating them, which involves putting a tube down the throat and...