S2 EP8: Rebecca Arndt - Premature Identical Twins, NICU and Special Care Stay, Pumping Aversion, Milk Donation, Balancing Motherhood
Description
In today's episode, we chat with Bec, a first-time mum of two beautiful identical twin girls.
Bec's journey to motherhood was challenging; she had to navigate multiple rounds of IVF, eventually falling pregnant with her twins and due to the journey leading up to her pregnancy, Bec struggled with anxieties throughout her pregnancy and into her postpartum.
2 months before her due date, Bec went into labour while she had COVID and gave birth to her daughters prematurely. This resulted in a week long stay in NICU and then three weeks in special care before going home under the NEDS Service (Neonatal Early Discharge Service.) NEDS gave Bec and her partner the opportunity to take the twins home where they would tube feed them and integrate them into their home environment.
When in NICU and Special Care, Bec struggled to find support within the hospital because due to being unvaccinated, she wasn't allowed to interact without parents or access the Ronald McDonald House. This was very isolating for her and really affected her first month as a mum,
Bec's feeding journey took time and commitment due to her milk taking a week to come in. She was pumping around the clock and grew an aversion towards it that resulted in intrusive thoughts and actions towards herself. Eventually, Bec's milk supply dropped and she didn't have enough to sustain both of the girls, so she accessed donated milk through the Facebook group 'Human Milk 4 Human Babies.'
Being a first time mum in the thick of motherhood with twins, Bec has learned a lot, believing that education is power and everything she has learned from this experience will help her in the future. She has so much knowledge about paediatric care due to NEDS and also did much research prior to postpartum so that she was prepared for the "what if's."
We hope you enjoy this episode
As always, if you would like to share your story or you are a professional with some helpful advice in this space, please reach out to us.
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