These books make perfect gifts for a preemie mom or a NICU graduate.

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Preemie Mom Picks

Preemies – Second edition

My first pick is one I recommend to every preemie mom I meet. I’ve even been known to loan out my personal copy, the First Edition. It’s Preemies – Second Edition: The Essential Guide for Parents of Premature Babies. While this looks like a thick medical textbook, it’s actually an extremely comprehensive resource for preemie parents filled with information on medical care in a warm, caring, and engaging voice. While it is not meant to replace a conversation with your doctors, I found that it helped me ask better questions and more quickly pick up the medical jargon.

It is divided into high level chapters like The First Day in the NICU; The First Week; Settling Down in the Hospital and If Your Baby Needs Surgery. These chapters helped ease my mind and answered many of my immediate questions. Additional chapters like From Preemie to Preschool and Beyond helped me feel more comfortable with the transition and what health impacts to watch for.

My Preemie Baby Book

This spiral-bound, soft cover NICU journal is a MUST for every preemie mom. Written by preemie parents, Kristin and Eric Moan, it is more than 200 pages of encouragement and empowerment. The Moans also started a nonprofit called the Potato Head Project to provide Mr. Potato Head and Mrs Potato Head toys to families in NICU to measure their babies’ growth—the same thing the Moans did with their girls. So inspiring!

While this colorful book would look great on any shelf, it’s the content that will have me recommending it again and again. The book does not simply stop with daily recording prompts where one would record the date, gestational age, size and notes from the day. It also includes numerous journal prompts for NICU milestones:

• First time we saw you
• First time we touched you
• First time we did cares
• First time we held you
• even first poop!

It also includes a space to secure keepsakes like the hospital bracelet, jaundice treatment “sunglasses,” and other items for remembrance. Read my full review here and grab your copy of My Preemie Baby Book here. (Affiliate link)

 

NICU Grad Pick

Go, Preemie!

Did you know famous author Mark Twain and Olympic gold medalist Wilma Rudolph were both two months premature? They are just a few of the accomplished preemies featured in my second pick, Go Preemies! This pick is perfect for both preemie moms and NICU graduates. It would make a great “pick-me-up” gift for a preemie mom or addition to a “welcome home” or baby shower gift basket.

Go Preemies! tells the inspirational stories of the world’s most famous preemies, including our greatest scientists (Darwin, Einstein), artists (Picasso, Stevie Wonder), Olympic champions (Rudolph) and world leaders (Winston Churchill). Another cool connection–the author and illustrator were both preemies! Families will love learning more about the world-changing accomplishments that preemies have achieved, and can achieve, despite the challenges of preterm birth.

 

Small but Mighty

NICU nurse Alyssa Veech wrote Small but Mighty as a way to encourage preemie families to read to their baby. This simple task provides a sense of purpose and plays an important role in their preemie’s long-term growth and development.

I appreciate that the book doesn’t shy away from showing the realities of the NICU. On the cover, a preemie mom is drawn comforting her preemie with her hands inside an isolette, not able to hold her little one. A monitor chimes over one shoulder and cords for feeds and fluids hang over the other.

The book also shows tube feeding, monitors, kangaroo care and pumping all with encouraging captions about a preemie mother’s love. This book would also be perfect to share with a preemie sibling to leanr more about NICU life if they haven’t been allowed to visit their new brother or sister. 

The book comes in paperback or hardback on Amazon (affiliate links), Or check out Alyssa’s website and purchase from her at https://small-but-mighty.org/

Happy reading!