Mothers of premature babies can stay close to their children 24 hours a day after new care rooms were built at a hospital.

Mothers at Barnet Hospital, in Wellhouse Lane, will be the first to use the UK’s first ever ‘individual care rooms’.

The Starlight neonatal unit will allow newborn babies to receive care and treatment in a private setting next to their parents.

The ten new rooms will also help the newborn baby’s brain development by limiting light and noise levels.

Senior matron Karina Wyles said: “The rooms enable parents to learn a sense of parenting control, to provide prolonged episodes of skin to skin care and to get to know their baby, within a calm, private setting.”

Hina Parmar’s daughter Maya was looked after in an individualised care room after being born 15 weeks early.

She said: “My daughter was born at only 25 weeks and we spent two months in intensive care at another hospital before being transferred to the Starlight unit at Barnet. We have had the opportunity to stay in an individualised care room and it is fantastic.

“Before, I would come to the hospital in the morning and go home in the evening, but this unit enabled me to be with Maya for 24 hours a day and to do everything for her, with the added bonus that a nurse is available outside at all times for support. I think that more hospitals should adopt it.”