Three ways to help when "nothing helps" - WITHDRAWAL SYMPTOMS

It is heart-breaking to listen to your child cry inconsolably; to see your baby restless, unable to sleep amidst all the fuss of the intensive care unit. I was not ready to witness withdrawal symptoms.

Pea sized sweat drops on a less than two months old baby caught me by surprise. Bed was soaked more times than the nurses managed to change it. I remember having a pile of cotton cloth muslins next to her bed. To avoid bothering the staff, I just brought our own. I would fold one and put it below her head and shoulders so the water leaving her body would be caught in something I managed to swap by myself, without getting all entangled in tubes and wires, and without needing to change an entire set of bed linens. But beyond that, it was nerve-wracking to feel helpless.

Baby Mozart for sleep

One day I finally found her calm. She was sleeping. After I checked her monitor and all the stats, ran my eyes over the drip pumps for meds, touched all cables and tubes around her, like all of it was my job and as if it made any difference, I noticed a set of new wires. They were coming from a small, round, black box at the bottom of her bed and led straight to her ears. It was a CD player! Nurses put on a selection of gentle lullabies to soothe her. And it helped!

Baby Mozart became a regular item in my YouTube library. When earphones would not be an option, I just played it from my mobile phone and kept it as close to her ear as possible, while holding her hand and resting my head right next to it.

Dark tent for focus

Sometimes, though, she did not want to be touched. Nor held. Everything would irritate her. Those were times when it seemed like nothing helped. And at one point, I stopped counting the doses of relaxation and light sedation drugs she was getting to get her weaned off the hard ones. It was fighting fire with fire, while her eyes were wide open and her pupils were moving in all directions. She seemed lost in space. By moving her head left and right and back, she tried to take in all of the room - every twinkling light, beeping monitor, people entering and leaving her visual borders. It was simply too much.

What helped guide her focus was a makeshift tent put over her. What nurses did was basically hang a green, thick, surgical sheet over the heater that is above every baby bed or incubator. It provided shelter. It provided a safe space. It reduced the light and made an environment as close to a day and a night as possible in a busy place like the ICU is. Although it did not remove the sounds, it calmed her.

To further minimize stimulations, we removed all toys from her new shelter and hung only one lion. Her eyes rested on him.

(Also, that lion was her first training accessory as she later started lifting her hands to reach it.)

Snuggles for relaxation

Once the worst is behind, children still tend to be restless and irritated, and when your vision is fogged by tears you are holding back, it is easy to feel like a failing mother. Holding, cuddling, humming, singing and kissing sometimes simply does not work. Just as adults, kids also like to be left alone, I have learned. I would stay, of course, but I would let her be, often, with the help of a nurse, just tightly wrapped in a cosy bundle.

"When the child is bigger, this is not an option anymore. Also, if a child is on ECMO*; tubes and wires prevent it. What could work though, is a nest. A child can be surrounded as snuggly as possible by snake pillows - around head, shoulders, hips, legs. Simply, wrap it all around."

Our nurses were always full of ideas. We owe our life-long gratitude to many of them, but especially to Katarína Galatová. She works at the Paediatric Cardiac Center in Bratislava, Slovakia, in the ICU. She specializes in basal stimulation and she was always our go-to person for the ways we could make our daughter's life at the hospital easier.

"What we noticed also helps when a child is restless is a lollipop - a sponge on a stick, dipped in water, tea or anything lightly sweet. A normal gauze works as well. Kids love to suck on it. It's something different from a pacifier, and it tends to calm them."

*ExtraCorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) is an advanced form of life support, targeted at the heart and lungs.