Bundy bubs double premmie numbers

BUNDABERG bubs are eager to see the world with the number of premature births almost doubling in the last decade.

Alysha Wise with her now healthy son Tyler Kaplan who was born three months early. . Picture: Max Fleet

BUNDABERG bubs are eager to see the world with the number of premature births almost doubling in the last decade.

The Bundaberg Base Hospital saw 69 premature children born in 1999 compared with 116 in 2009.

Bundaberg mother Alysha Wise welcomed her three month early baby boy Tyler on Christmas Day 2007 and said the experience was a "rollercoaster" of emotions.

"The only warning I had was my blood pressure was quite high," she said.

"Tyler spent his first two months in hospitals. It was really scary."

The mother was flown to the Royal Women’s Hospital in Brisbane to give birth where she and her son spent the next month in the neo-natal unit.

"After that we came back to Bundaberg and he was in the Special Care Nursery for another month," Miss Wise said.

"I felt really guilty like it was my fault. It was a rollercoaster of emotions with all the good and bad news. It felt like we would never go home."

Miss Wise was unable to hold her son for his first five days of his life and after that, she could only hold him every three or four days.

Posh Tots Baby Store employee Jessica Marshall said the demand for tiny baby clothes was also on the rise.

"The amount of people coming in for the premmie baby clothes and the sizes they need is really surprising," she said.

"We had one person come in looking for clothes for a 500 gram baby."

Ms Marshall said finding clothes small enough for the early infants was difficult.

"Some people need as small as six zeros," she said.

"The smallest they make is four zeros so it’s really hard for people with these tiny babies."

Mater Mother’s Hospital neonatology director Dr David Knight said the increase was due to an increase in multiple births.

"This is in turn due to an increased use of fertility treatment," he said.

"Premature labour is difficult to predict unless the mother has had a previous premature baby in which case serial ultrasound scans may spot shortening of the cervix."

Originally published as Bundy bubs double premmie numbers