Terri Mello said she’s always been active and led a healthy lifestyle, so when she became pregnant she didn’t expect there to be any abnormalities. “But I had preeclampsia with both boys,” she said.The condition, formerly called toxaemia, is characterised by high blood pressure and high levels of protein in the urine. It is dangerous to both mother and baby if it develops into eclampsia. Eclampsia can be fatal.When Terri developed preeclampsia her doctor sent her to Boston for observation. She was only 28 weeks into the pregnancy but when doctors saw her they said she needed to stay and did not let her return to Bermuda.“Asher came at 31 weeks,” she said. She gave birth at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and her son was kept in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) there.“He was only two pounds when he was born so he was very tiny,” she said.Terri and her husband Matthew were in Boston for three weeks as their son Asher stayed in the NICU. They were able to visit him often. At three weeks he was transferred to SCBU (Special Care Baby Unit) at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital (KEMH) where he stayed for a month before being allowed home with them.Five years later Terri developed high blood pressure 29 weeks into her pregnancy. At 33 weeks she experienced pain in her liver.“I went to maternity, they did an ultrasound and then an emergency C-section,” she said.Her second son, Asa, was 4lbs at birth and had respiratory distress syndrome.“He was gasping for air and made a horrible sound when he breathed,” she said.Asa was kept in the SCBU at KEMH for four weeks, but Terri was able to see him often.“They want you to start walking right after you have a c-section,” she said. “So it worked well that Asa was just down the hall. It motivated me to do the walking,” she said.The KEMH SCBU is in the maternity ward. At Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston Terri said she had to be wheeled to a ward far away from hers in order to see her first son in the NICU.“When Asa was born there were only three babies in the SCBU,” said Terri. “The size being smaller (than Brigham and Women’s NICU) it was nice and easy to get to know all the nurses. I think this is helpful when you are visiting your baby at different times of day. You cannot get that experience in a huge hospital.”And she said she feels both her sons received excellent care in their first few weeks. An American married to a Bermudian, Terri said her first experience with KEMH was having her children in the SCBU.“I think they (KEMH) get a bad rap here,” said Terri. “I had a great experience with the nurses and doctors there. I really felt comfortable with having Asa there.”“While the scale of the Brigham and Women's NICU was understandably larger, I noticed no discernible difference in the quality of care,” said Terri’s husband Matthew.“The staff of the KEMH SCBU was attentive, informative and compassionate — all the qualities you could ask for,” he added.“The babies that were in the SCBU were getting the attention I would have wanted,’ said Terri. “All the staff was very knowledgeable. They really cared and kept me abreast of everything that was going on.”And she said SCBU nurses encouraged she and her husband to call them at any time of the day or night to check on their son.“They really want the parents to feel included I felt they understood what we were going through,” said Terri. Because it’s (SCBU) so small they could easily look in and let us know how he was doing right away,” she added. She said in Boston it was not so easy. That she could call but the caseworker would have to be found. She would have to wait for the caseworker to be paged or to call her back. Then the caseworker would be consulting a chart and not simply popping around the corner and physically seeing the baby.Asa stayed in the SCBU for four weeks. Today he’s a happy, healthy eight-month-old and his older brother, Asher, is six-years-old. The Mellos attribute the excellent care their two boys got when they were born prematurely, to their developmental success today.