Maura Fay

It's all about communication when feeding and working on the suck, swallow, breathe pattern to avoid milk going down the wrong way.

Now, for breastfeeding NICU mothers, the Coombe also gives them all the breastfeeding equipment they need so they don't have to worry about going out to buy supplies.

And they also get a free meal each day in the staff canteen.

And the Coombe is having really good results through these supports.

44% of extremely premature babies born at the Coombe Hospital are exclusively breastfed at the point they're discharged from the hospital.

This is well above the average, the Irish average, which is just 11%.

It is.

I.B.

Chak is the lactation specialist at the unit and she explained to me the science behind it.

When you say drops, you're talking about 10 mil, 20 mil?

They do.

For some mothers, their breast milk may not come in because of physical stress or medical complications around an early delivery.

And it's also a big part of IB's role to support and counsel those mothers where donor milk is the only option.

Now, breast milk is not the only thing premature babies receive.

Sometimes an additional fortifier is added to it.

Fiona Dunleavy is the dietitian manager at the Coombe and she explained to me why this is and how many calories a premature baby needs.

So I spoke to Laura Gorman from Lucan in Dublin.

She gave birth to her third baby boy on February 27th.

Baby Luke came into the world at 27 weeks and five days gestation, weighing just 1.14 kilograms.

I asked Laura how her breastfeeding journey has been so far with Luke.