Having been alone in hospital with twins, I know neonatal care leave is key

I'll never forget being told that my twins would need to be delivered urgently that day. I was only 33+6 weeks pregnant at the time and was warned that as they would be born prematurely they would need to be taken straight to the neonatal unit.

In fact my first three weeks of motherhood would be spent in the special care baby unit (SCBU) learning to take care of two tiny babies and navigate a scary new world of beeps, alarms and medical terminology. And the whole thing was made all the more difficult because I had to go through a lot of it alone, when my husband returned to work.

That's why I was thrilled when I heard that families with babies in neonatal care will now be entitled to additional time off to tackle some of the difficulties parents face when their baby is in neonatal care, such as having to return to work.

Neonatal care leave will apply to parents of babies who are admitted into neonatal care up to 28 days old and who have a continuous stay in hospital of seven days or longer. The new measures will allow eligible parents to take up to 12 weeks of leave (and, if eligible, pay) on top of any other leave they may be entitled to, including maternity and paternity leave.

It's news that will no doubt will be welcomed by the parents of the 90,000 babies, who are cared for in neonatal units in the UK, including The Traitors star Leanne Quigley. On Friday's episode of the hit show, the 26-year-old spoke of her desire to have another baby following the trauma of her twin boys arriving prematurely and spending over 90 days in the neonatal unit.

"I was only 26 weeks when I went into labour," she told her fellow contestants. "We spent the first three months when they were born in intensive care. They were in and out of hospital. We've been through a lot."

Around one in every seven babies born in England, Scotland and Wales will need neonatal care. This is because they are born too early, with a low birth weight or have a medical condition that needs specialist treatment

According to the charity Bliss for babies born sick or premature, there are different types of neonatal units in the NHS, and they are named depending on the level of specialist care they offer.

Special care baby unit (SCBU, SCU or low dependency) is for babies who do not need intensive care. Often, this will be for babies born after 32 weeks’ gestation.

Local neonatal unit (LNU) This is for babies who need a higher level of medical and nursing support. If your baby was, or will be, born between 27 and 31 weeks’ gestation, you may be transferred to an LNU.

Neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) This is for babies with the highest need for support lasting more than 48 hours. Often these babies will have been born before 28 weeks’ gestation, or be very unwell after birth.

When my own twin babies were born they spent the first 24 hours in the NICU being offered help with their breathing, before being transferred to SCBU, where they spent the next three weeks being tube fed in incubators.

Still in shock at the twins early and dramatic arrival after an emergency caesarean (under a general anaesthetic) my husband and I bumbled through the next few days in the NICU before making the decision that my husband should go back to work.

At the time he was entitled to just two weeks paternity leave and rather than use it all up while the babies were being cared for by specialist nurses, we decided it would be better taken when we were able to bring the twins home.

It wasn't a decision we took lightly and it definitely wasn't easy as it meant I spent most of the next two and a half weeks in SCBU alone, but with time and financial stress playing on our minds we also felt it was the best option.

We certainly aren't alone in taking that decision. According to research from Bliss a quarter of fathers had to choose between taking time off when their baby was in neonatal care, or when their baby went home. Meanwhile, in seven in 10 families with a neonatal stay over four weeks, at least one parent (usually dads and non-birthing parents) return to work while their baby is still sick in hospital.

The same study also found that 36% of dads resorted to being signed off sick in order to spend time with their baby on the neonatal unit.

My lonely neonatal ward experience

When our twins were born prematurely our whole lives changed in an instant. Following the trauma of an emergency C-Section, I could barely care for myself and my carefully-prepped postpartum plan with plenty of rest and recovery went out the window. Instead I was travelling to and from the hospital (around five miles away) and spending around 15 hours a day coping with the upset of having two tiny babies wired up to all sorts of scary looking machines and with feeding tubes in their tiny noses.

And then there was the job of actually looking after the twins. I had never even changed a nappy, let alone changed one through two holes in an incubator, wondering if I'm going to snap either of their little legs and while the machines bleeped angrily and my babies cried desperately.

To say it was a crash course in parenting is an understatement, but it was made all the more difficult because I had to do a lot of it on my own. Navigating a strange new world of machines, measurements and medical terminology, while also coping with my raging hormones and tearful wobbles, is a period of my life that I'll never forget. Even now hearing the steady bleep of a medical machine takes me right back to the scary time spent in that stuffy SCBU.

I remember one particularly traumatic day when my son failed a hearing test. Feeling totally overwhelmed and not having my husband there for support I collapsed in uncontrollable sobs. Thankfully, one of the nurses (who were all utterly amazing by the way) gave me the cuddle my husband was unable to because he was at work.

But it wasn't just hard for me, things were equally as tough for my husband. He had to spend his first two weeks of fatherhood in distracted meetings, trying to concentrate on his professional to-do list, when really he longed to be by my side in the neonatal unit with his newborns. Every night he would rush down to the hospital to spend a precious few hours with them before returning home to an empty, baby-less house, the not-yet-built cots a reminder of the babies premature arrival.

Why neonatal care leave is crucial

I couldn't be happier about the introduction of neonatal care leave. This will make a huge difference to families, like mine, who are already navigating what what is for most a hugely traumatic experience.

If this measure had been in place when my own babies were born in 2010 I wouldn’t have needed to spend the first three weeks of my maternity leave alone in the neonatal unit and my husband wouldn’t have needed to juggle a big commute, work and daily hospital visits.

He would also have been able to be there with me all day, every day as we navigated the emotional first few weeks of our twins' life. As well as enabling us more time to learn how to look after the babies together, it also would have allowed us time to bond as a family from day one.

There are other factors this new measure will address too. As things stand at the moment a lack of leave for neonatal parents means mothers and birthing parents use up much of their entitlement before their babies are home and often return to work earlier than intended due to financial pressure.

And while it didn't apply in our case, according to Bliss some mothers and birthing parents have no choice but to leave their jobs to care for their babies, who may have ongoing appointments and follow-up during their first year as a result of their neonatal stay.

Commenting on the new rules employment rights minister Justin Madders said: “Parents of children in neonatal care have more than enough to worry about without being concerned about how much annual leave they have left or whether they’ll be able to make ends meet.

“This entitlement will deliver certainty to them and their employers, setting baseline protections that give them the peace of mind to look after the one thing that matters most – their newborn baby.”

While Catriona Ogilvy, founder of The Smallest Things charity, said: "The Smallest Things is delighted to see neonatal leave and pay move one step closer to being available to thousands of parents whose babies are born sick or premature.

"The stress and trauma experienced by families during a neonatal stay cannot be underestimated. In an instant, their world is turned upside down. No parent or carer should be sitting beside an incubator worrying about pay or work."

In our case the twins were discharged from hospital after just three weeks, so less than a month of my maternity leave was spent going to and from the hospital. But it isn't the same for many other parents. Adapting to parenthood is difficult enough, but doing so with a baby, or in our case babies, in neonatal care is even more of a challenge. Those additional (up to) 12 weeks leave will make a huge difference.

Read more about parenting:

• Do parents really have a favourite child? Research says yes (HuffPost, 3-min read)

• Myleene Klass campaigns for paid bereavement leave to cover miscarriages (Yahoo Life UK, 4-min read)

• Nine things to expect from a twin pregnancy as Jesy Nelson shares baby news (Yahoo Life UK, 7-min read)