It is recommended you soothe a sick baby by holding them and giving them lots of love and attention. Nothing provides comfort in the time of sickness like that of a mother.
When a baby is sick, they become consumed by it. They do not have the capacity to tell you what is wrong or help themselves in anyway. You can see the uncomfortableness and pain of it across their faces and bodies. You just want to take the pain away from them even for a moment. If you could swap places with them, you would, so they wouldn’t have to go through it.
Their little cry for help when they are sick is more desperate than other times. Overnight is the hardest. They gasp into the early hours trying to catch their breath. They need their sleep more than anything however they are more unsettled than ever. Most of the time they only want to be held upright. You lull them back to sleep any way you can, mostly rocking them till they return to their slumber.
In sick babies you see the human survival instinct at its best. They will cough and splutter with sickness, but they will keep breathing and their heart keeps pumping away. We are born to fight and overcome sickness in most cases. Our bodies push out the bad and foreign germs and items over time as that is how we have been designed. Over time, most people and babies do recover from their woes.
Sick babies have a limpness to their body. Their arms fall onto you and their body weight sinks into you. Your arms become sore from holding them for hours on end but an internal strength keeps your arms from flailing. The sense of time is lost as nothing else matters then being there with them. As you hold them you know they need you at that moment.
Nurses in the special care baby wards work hard to get premature and unwell newborns into the arms of their parents as soon as possible. It is so important for these little ones to have some skin on skin contact and connectedness as soon as they can, even if they are supported by various tubes. Some hospitals have volunteers come into their special care baby wards to hold the sick babies when the parents can’t be there. You hear volunteers talk of their experiences and the amazing passing of endorphins even while the babies are so sick. I also have heard of a midwife or two who loves to spend a few hours on a quiet night shift holding a newborn baby if they can. The love those babies get from being held is so important to them.
No matter your age, you always want your mother when you are unwell. When I watch those accident and emergency shows people always ask for their partner and/or their mother to be called as soon as possible. Mum is the one who will sit with you next to a hospital stretcher bed no matter how long it takes or what hour it is. Mothers seem to know what to do in a crisis and sickness. They know the next steps to take whether it is serving chicken noodle soup, administering pain relief, or putting you to bed. They normally cuddle and then take action and sometimes those are the first steps to recovery.
As my own mother is starting to age, I find some of the caring and holding roles reversing. Now when she is sick I am the one she calls or asks to call in an emergency. I am the one holding her hand while she rests in bed. I come as soon as I can, sometimes with my own kids in tow, to keep her company or drop off anything she needs. I note some weeks I am in a caring sandwich nursing my mother and my own children. Sickness is not something that should be faced alone no matter your age.
The best medicine in the world is a mother’s hug. The connectedness and love in that moment can fix just about anything. May we all have someone holding us when we need it the most.
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