Hospital bag for a (possibly) premature birth

[110APiccadilly]

I'm 29 weeks with baby no. 2 and have been warned by the consultant that as baby has signs of restricted growth (has done since 20 weeks) they might well need to be delivered early. I find being well-prepared is helpful to me in difficult situations so I'd like to get a hospital bag packed sooner rather than later.

Obviously I know the normal stuff that should go in for baby and me (and I already have some tiny baby clothes as DD was full term but unexpectedly small - it now looks like she had the same stuff going on but in her case it was never picked up) but I was wondering whether there was anything that would be particularly helpful to pack because of the prematurity.

Can’t help you with prem stuff and don’t know if you had a section with your first baby but if your needing a section and haven’t had one buy loads of black big knickers Asda maternity ones are amazing. Take nighties rather than pjs so you can get out the gown after section but they can still check your blood loss and stuff. Take snacks to as if you can’t sleep through the night you will get hungry(and hospital food is generally crap) Good Luck with everything.

@Flowerbug1994 Thank you. I did have a section with DD but it wasn't planned so didn't lack anything specific for it and had to make do with what I had with me. I am planning to prepare for that a bit better this time!

Depending on how prem baby is, they might not be wearing clothes for a while, but footless babygros are really good for giving the doctors and nurses access to baby's foot for the monitoring clip. We only had tiny baby babygros and hadnt thought about this. DD was born at 37.5w with suspected IUGR but also had sepsis so we had a bit of an extended stay.

Depending on when and how small baby is, Asda do a prem range of clothes that are super accessible especially if baby needs to go into the NICU at all- also Next do a up to 5lb range too so could be worth looking at these- my son was born at 6lb and for his first week fitted into the prem stuff from Asda!

As PP said definitely snacks for hospital, and if baby will potentially have NICU time I would take an ipad or laptop etc to keep you company as they can be long hours when you're away from baby!

As a general guide, expect to stay in hospital after the birth until around the date your baby was originally due to be born. If they have responded well to treatment, you may be able to go home sooner, but pack your hospital bag with that in mind.

I had twins born at 32 weeks but I'm not in the UK

I wouldn't bring anything for the baby. They need to be quite a lot bigger before they start wearing clothes and our NICU had clothes that babies could wear which was laundered by the hospital. You will have lots of time hanging around NICU to sort the stuff you need to bring baby home. I used to go in for the morning feeds and change and then go out and no some errands before coming back for the afternoon feeds and changes.

You will find too that people want to help and can bring things to you that you have forgotten.