At the Mother and Child Clinic of the Danylo Halytskyi LNMU University Hospital in Lviv, doctors are caring for a baby girl named Kvitka, who was born at 29 weeks of pregnancy weighing just 900 grammes and measuring 38 centimetres in length.
This is the first child for Halyna, a Lviv resident. The parents spent a long time choosing a name and decided on Kvitka, to highlight her fragility and delicacy. In early May, the woman began to experience rising blood pressure; doctors diagnosed mild pre-eclampsia and placed her under observation. After a short time at home, Halyna returned to hospital, where on 4 June she underwent an emergency caesarean section.
Because she was born prematurely, the baby had immature lungs, so during the first weeks of life Kvitka needed respiratory support and stayed in the neonatal intensive care unit. Just three weeks after birth, the girl was able to breathe on her own, which became an important milestone in her recovery.
Over the following weeks, Kvitka still needed oxygen, but at four weeks her condition had improved to such an extent that she was moved to the post-intensive care unit. By the time we spoke to her mother, the girl was two months old and her weight had increased to 2,145 grammes. According to neonatologist Dr Iryna Nosova, the baby is showing positive progress: she no longer needs oxygen, has no episodes of apnoea or desaturation, and is learning to feed independently from a bottle.
Halyna says she sees her daughter’s daily progress and is grateful to the team at the Mother and Child Clinic for their joint work, thanks to which the baby is growing, gaining weight and becoming more active. Little Kvitka continues to take her “big little steps”, which with each passing day bring her closer to being discharged home.