Some babies are born prematurely and enter this world fighting for life.

  About thirty years ago, doctors found a way to give such children a chance. They asked the mother to hold the preemie under her shirt for a prolonged period so the baby could have skin-to-skin contact.

  The results were encouraging. The babies' heart rates and breathing stabilized, their weight increased, and they slept longer and cried less. And very often, mother and child could leave the hospital much earlier than cases without such intervention.

    The rate and quality of your growth is dependent on love. You need to be nurtured and feel the warmth of other human beings who have a vested interest in your existence.

     No matter how frail and helpless you may start out, there are those just waiting to love you back to life. I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power . . . to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love