Tonight program

ITV's Tonight (available on ITV Player until 9th December 2009) program this evening (9th Nov) discussed the issues around having a premature baby and also investigated the research into what causes premature labour in the first place.

The program was presented by Kym Marsh, who sadly lost her own son, Archie, who was born 18 weeks early. Our experience certainly can't be compared to losing a baby, but even so, knowing how I feel when revisiting the NICU even two years on, and discussing the experience of our 3 months in hospital means I have enormous respect for Kym. Along with other celebrities who make time to raise the issues of preemie babies, she is to be applauded.

In terms of the program content, it split into two areas, the issues surrounding preemies and the causes for prematurity in the first place. Many readers of this blog will be familiar with the issues; insufficient funds, too few nurses, transfers to hospitals miles from home - often splitting multiple births and mothers up. That said, it was good to see the issues being aired on a fairly well respected TV program. Also good to see Kym tackle Ann Keen the Health Minister. Having met Ann, I believe that particularly with her nursing background, she does care. However the promises fall flat without funding. she lost me in the argument over ringfencing money being a bad idea and was widely quoted last week during the taskforce report launch as saying that no additional funding would be available. Exactly where is 1 to 1 care going to come from then? No ringfencing, lots of other demands on NHS funds and an impending massive reduction in public spending. Hmm...

The section on investigating the causes of prematurity was interesting, as many of the people spoken to did not know the reason for their premature delivery (as indeed, we don't). The program reported on the work by Lucilla Poston looking into progesterone levels in saliva. This may indicate propensity to deliver prematurely, but I guess it is a long step from there to understanding the root cause, and from there to prevention. Still, in the name of this blog: Little by Little!

Further details of the issues raised can be found on the Bliss or Tommys websites.