Appearance and behaviour
Some people say that preemies look like little birds. They have no fat, and their veins and arteries are visible through their translucent skin. Their sex organs are immature, and there may be no areola around the nipples. Their ears are sometimes flat or folded, and their skin colour responds to feeding and physical touch.
The smaller the baby, the less control she has over her body. If you lay a tiny preterm baby on her back, very often her hands, arms, and legs will splay out and shake a bit, or go all limp. In contrast, a full-term baby has the ability to recover from this prone posture into the flexed position that keeps him calm. A preterm baby doesn't yet have that control.
In the past, preemies were cared for flat on their backs under bright lights in a hospital's NICU. Now, care providers are encouraged to tuck the baby's arms and legs back into the comfortable, flexed position and to help them bring their hands near their mouths. Babies are positioned on their sides or tummies, and they rest on beds of sheepskin or lambskin under dimmed lights.
Preterm babies used to be characterized by long, thin faces, but now that they're placed on soft bedding, their faces appear rounder. Preterm babies cry less often than their full-term counterparts, because they just don't have the energy. Indeed, these babies often deal with stress by simply shutting down and doing nothing. Preemies face greater risk of long-term behavioural characteristics like learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder, trouble with visual-spatial concepts, difficulties hearing, and eye problems.
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