Solutions Journalism: A better start

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 22 August 2024

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For every 10 babies born across the world one will be preterm and the fate of these tiny babies is often very uncertain. They are kept alive by science, care, and luck. Time in a neonatal unit can be a stressful and unpredictable time. We meet the people who are creating equipment and aids to create a kinder experience for both parents and babies alike to give them a better start in life. People like the founder of the Danish Octo Project, which kickstarted a movement across the world crocheting tiny Octopus toys to emulate the umbilical cord for premature babies, the engineer who kept her baby alive when the neonatal unit housing her son lost power in a devastating storm, leading to a remarkable invention. Finally, the foundation bringing purple butterflies to NICUs across the UK to help identify surviving children of multiple births.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the documentary from the BBC World Service.
0:05.0	That is an incubator.
0:08.0	And who had to go in an incubator?
0:10.0	Beyond that's sake.
0:12.0	You did, didn't you? What did you have to go in there for?
0:14.0	Because I wasn't to where when I first came out of movies to make.
0:20.0	I'm Becky Green and that is my nearly six-year-old son Bobby. My life revolves around stories.
0:26.7	I write children's audio stories for a living so my nine to five is princesses,
0:31.5	astronauts, dinosaurs and of course happy endings.
0:35.3	And Bobby, my brilliant little boy, is the happiest of endings, but in real life
0:40.6	stories are a bit more complicated. On the 25th of August 2018 I gave
0:45.9	birth to twin baby boys eight weeks early. There were no warning signs until the
0:50.8	last moment when I went from 32 weeks pregnant to a busy neonatal ward in a flash.
0:56.0	On the 31st of August, at six days old, Twin 2, Jesse, died from abdominal sepsis.
1:02.0	Twin 1, Bobby, would stay between two
1:05.4	different neonatal units over the next five weeks before he was ready to come
1:09.0	home. For BBC World Service, this is a better start.
1:16.0	Across the world, one in ten babies in 2020 were born prematurely,
1:20.0	which is around 13.4 million babies.
1:23.0	But it's not just premature babies who receive neonatal care.
1:27.0	In the UK, around 60% of babies admitted to neonatal units are born full term. So me and Bobby are going to find out about
1:36.6	the world of neonatal care, the extraordinary work that happens every day across the globe
	...

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