ABSTRACT
As Brazelton (1992) says, the birth of a premature baby is a shock. It is a shock which begins with the parents and the baby and then reverberates through the family and the staff of the Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU) or Neonatal Intensive Care Baby Unit (NICU). The shock can give rise to feelings of hopelessness, despair and pain which can feel intolerable to all those concerned. For the baby it is a shock because she (for simplicity, I refer to the babies in general as ‘she’) is having to be born before her body is fully developed and probably before she feels psychologically ready to be born. It is important therefore that someone is available who has the capacity to contain these feelings.
