Where babies are the life of the party
Published: September 18, 2005
John Thomas DiPietropolo Jr. entered the world by waking up his parents last Christmas morning. He was born at Winchester Hospital two months early, weighing 4 pounds 15 ounces.
Eight months older and 15 pounds heavier, John returned to the hospital with his parents and about 450 others who know firsthand the kind of ordeal the DiPietropolos faced.
These anxieties seemed far away last Sunday, at the 16th annual reunion for the special-care nursery at Winchester Hospital. On that sunny afternoon, the hospital’s front lawn was filled with balloons and toddlers running around, eating striped, frosted cupcakes. A woman with a guitar played ”Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.”
The only thing the families had in common was that their babies were born before 37 weeks of pregnancy, too small or too sick to go home. But the intensity of that shared experience created a bond between the families and the hospital that lasted long after the children went home.
At the reunion, nurses and doctors greeted families like old friends. Sets of twins and triplets lounged in multiple-baby strollers while wearing the oversized sunglasses the hospital gave away as gifts.
The young DiPietropolo flung his plastic teething toy on the grass over and over, as his parents talked about the tension and fear in the first weeks following his birth.
”It’s such a different experience having to wait a month to take your baby home than having a baby and taking it home right away,” said Dawn DiPietropolo of Billerica. ”It’s reassuring to be here and see they grow, and they’re fine.”
”It was hardest when you had to leave him at the hospital and go home for the night,” said his father, John Thomas DiPietropolo Sr.
”Looking back on it, it was intense,” said Dawn. ”We were in shock.”
Parents’ connection with the special-care nursery results from the amount of time they spend at the hospital as their children recover and eventually become capable of breathing on their own. Coping with illness immediately after birth is stressful, but the anxiety can last much longer for parents, as they watch their children grow and hope other physical or learning disabilities do not emerge.
”Going home is a big event, but it can be nerve-racking,” said Dr. Karen McAlmon, a neonatologist and medical director of the special-care nursery. ”It takes some parents a while to see their baby as just a baby, and not a sick baby, or a baby that has special needs.”
In the United States, about a half-million infants are born prematurely each year. Underdeveloped babies are at increased risk of death in their first year of life and are more likely to develop heart, lung, and brain disorders later.
The rate of pre-term births nationwide has increased by more than 30 percent since the early 1980s, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Winchester’s special-care nursery, established in 1988, has grown along with the national trend.
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