Swansea mum on baby Olive's NICU journey and first music

A Swansea mum has described the moment her baby daughter heard music for the first time, asleep on her chest in a neonatal intensive care unit.

Kirsten is an experienced mother of five, and after four straightforward pregnancies she had expected her fifth to follow the pattern. It did not.

She was carrying identical twins, and early in the pregnancy was diagnosed with twin to twin transfusion syndrome, a rare and serious condition in which uneven blood vessel connections in the placenta cause one twin to lose blood to the other.

The babies were monitored closely. At an 18-week scan came the hardest news: one of the twins, Blossom, had died.

At 24 weeks the family feared they were about to lose her sister too, when Kirsten’s waters broke. She was rushed to Southmead Hospital in Bristol, the closest hospital at the time with a neonatal intensive care cot free, but the labour did not progress.

Baby Olive held on, then timed her own arrival just before Kirsten was due to be induced at 36 weeks.

Concerns about swelling on her bowel took Olive to the neonatal unit for monitoring, and as her feeds were increased she began to struggle, unable to keep down more than 16 millilitres of milk.

At two and a half weeks old she was taken down for exploratory surgery, which found the cause: an ileal atresia, a birth defect in which the lower part of the small intestine is narrowed or blocked. The diagnosis puzzled her medical team, because Olive had been passing the food she could take, which is highly unusual in such cases.

Surgeons removed 20cm of her small intestine, and Olive returned to the unit sedated and ventilated. For Kirsten and husband Dan, who had already been through so much, it was a hugely difficult thing to see.

Then Becca sat down with a guitar

It was around this time that Olive and Kirsten met Becca, a music therapist whose sessions on the ward are funded by the Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospital Charity.

“When one of the nurses asked if we might like some music therapy, I was really keen,” Kirsten said. “At this point with my other children we would have started going to local mother and baby sessions and it was something I was really missing this time around.

“Olive was asleep on me during her first music session but as soon as she heard the music her little body started to react. Her eyes started to twitch and she was wriggling her little arms and legs. It was a really special moment because I’ll always remember the first time Olive heard music.

“It’s a memory I can keep when so many other moments were taken away.”

Kirsten said the sessions gave her something too. “Music is obviously really emotive and I find the music sessions very emotional. Perhaps it’s an opportunity for me to let my feelings out a bit too. It’s something you can immerse yourself in that helps you escape from the clinical environment of the ward into a bit of normality for a while.

“Becca is so lovely and gentle, the exact bit of calm you need in amongst all the chaos.”

“It’s impossible to imagine what the NICU experience is like until you’ve experienced it. I know because up until now, I had no idea either. To have a bit of normality and that opportunity just to connect with your baby genuinely does make the world of difference.”