HELP PLEASE - any support groups / advice for prem babies?

[NottsMum]

Our best friend has just come round in tears, his wife has given birth at 31 weeks to a 1lb 90z baby who only has a 60% chance of surviving as he is underdeveloped. Can anyone recommend a support group to help them or offer any other practical advice?

We feel helpless so if there's anything at all we can do to help them please please let us know.

babycentre (www.babycentre.co.uk) has a bulletin board for parents of premature babies - i think it is called "born too soon". Best of luck to your friend and his little family.

Just gone through ds keepsake box, going through leaflets given to us there's a group called BLISS www.bliss.org.uk or national Childbirth Trust www.nct-online.org or Tel 020 8992 8637. Thouhts and prayers with him and his family

Bliss is fantasti, they have a great website and I believe a parents helpline, run by parents who have gobne through the same thing. I don't know the acts in your friends case, but my understanding (from having a 27 weeker myself) is that 31 weeks is quite a long way into the pg, and survival is usually higher than 60%, perhaps there is something more than just prematurit. 1lb 9oz is very very small for 31 weeks (usually over 2.5 lbs) so unfortuneately there mabe another issue. Therefore ask them to sit down with the docs and try to talk through the facts, I found this helped a lot.

Having just watched theprem baby programme on BBC1 it brought it all home to me.c