Preterm Babies : Intensive Medical Care Available In Hospitals

November 21, 2024 at the Chantal Biya Foundation, serenity reigns as medical personnel go about their duties. At the neonatology unit of the Foundation where premature babies are kept, another degree of calmness can be observed as some few mothers could be seen standing around the entrance into the ward, wearing face masks. Those who had to enter the ward could be seen taking the necessary hygienic measures.  Inside the ward, premature babies could be seen in different incubators, undergoing different medical care for their proper evolution.
According to the Director of the Mother and Child Centre of the Chantal Biya Foundation, Professor Paul Olivier Koki Ndombo, 11 out of 100 children are born prematurely. But the prevalence rate, he further explained, changes depending on the regions. There are regions where the birth of premature babies is higher. Such is the case with the Centre Region. The earlier the baby arrives, the smaller she/he is, the larger the head seem in relation to the rest of the body, and the less fat the body has. With so little fat, the baby skin seems thinner and more transparent, allowing one to actually see the blood vessels beneath it. The baby may have fine hair, called lanugo, on her back and shoulders.
Inside the neonatal ward for preterm babies, one could see true characteristics of babies born before the average full-term baby weights which is about seven pounds (3.17 kg). A premature new-born, doctors say, might weight five pounds (2.26 kg) or even considerably less. But thanks to medical advances, Prof. Paul Koki Ndombo says children born after twenty-eight weeks of pregnancy, and weighing more than 1 kg, have almost a full chance of survival; eight out of ...