Friday 26 February 2010

Excuse me doctor, my baby is missing something




One of my friends pointed out something to me yesterday, that her baby, born at 27 weeks, was born without nipples. How odd! Surely I'd remember if my son was born with something, although useless, aesthetically quite important.




I don't remember checking Joseph's chest, I never saw him when he was born, and didn't see him until 10 hours after birth, by which time his poor chest was covered in sensor monitors.




So begun a search through my archive of pictures of Joseph in hospital. All of my photos of him had wires and pads all over his chest. Finally, I remembered, the bath photos!




Yep, my friend was quite right, no nipples. So I have checked on the internet, and yes, babies born before 34 weeks generally do not have nipples and they grow later!




It's really amazing isn't it, that you can see something you would take for granted just appear on your baby!




5 comments:

  1. Fascinating! I never thought about that!

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  2. I had to laugh at this one. I started a blog about my boys (born at 28w3d) finally getting nipples. I was SO relieved! (dec. 8, 2007 if you're interested)

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  3. My Little Man was born at 30 +5 and it was one of the first things my husband noticed, and I think he was quite preturbed by it!

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  4. Heh. My 27+3 weeker, also with severe IUGR (472g) was definitely born with nipples. Thanks to the wonders of the TV show Community we were referring to them as "hamster nips" for the first month. Actually we still are...

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