Parents of Premature Babies Struggle To Get Help Their Children Are Entitled To
Article/Op-Ed in The Hechinger Report
Camilla Forte/The Hechinger Report
Jan. 23, 2025
Sarah Carr wrote an article in The Hechinger Report examining the struggles parents of premature babies face in accessing early intervention services their children are entitled to. Carr highlights the transformative impact of these services in helping children reach developmental milestones and reduce the need for special education later on, while calling for greater equity and accessibility in support systems nationwide.
After several challenging and stressful months in the neonatal intensive care unit, Karen Heath couldn’t wait to take her triplet sons home. The boys had been born severely premature at 25 weeks, each weighing a bit over a pound. In the early hours, doctors cautioned they would not survive long. The triplets, thankfully, proved the doctors wrong. But for about three months, Heath was not allowed to hold them, satisfying herself with photos, videos and kisses blown.
The long-anticipated discharge in the early summer of 2019 was joyful, but also rushed and, as Heath recalls it, somewhat cavalier. An hour before release, a physical therapist showed Heath how to help the babies gain strength by gently stretching their legs out. A nurse gave her a quick tutorial on how to use the oxygen tanks they would need for the next couple of months. And Heath gathered together basic necessities and a few mementos: diapers, pacifiers, blood pressure cuffs and tiny hospital bands.
But no one at the hospital, one of Chicago’s largest, told Heath or her husband what she felt would have been the most helpful advice in the long run: The triplets’ low birth weight alone meant they were automatically eligible for what’s known as early intervention services, which can include speech, physical, occupational and other therapies.