Dr. Mehmet Oz has some cautionary words for Kim Kardashian and Kanye West: He knows first-hand what it's like to have a five-weeks-premature baby — and it's not easy. Far from it, in fact.
The host of The Dr. Oz Show spoke to Us Weekly at the Daytime Emmy Awards on June 16 in Beverly Hills about his thoughts on the new parents' pre-term baby girl. (A newborn is considered premature if born before 37 weeks of pregnancy; Kardashian and West's daughter was born June 15, after 35 weeks of pregnancy.) "I've been following Kim's story, which I have a personal interest in aside from being a doctor," he shares. "Our youngest child [Oliver] was born five weeks premature. So I know how hair-raising that is, and the most important thing to recognize is today, we can actually get kids to survive almost always, but if you don't manage them really well early on, they can grow up to develop all kinds of issues."
The new parents will need to really put the focus on their pre-term newborn in the coming weeks, he says. "We change how a child responds to a world around it in those first few weeks of life, so they ought to really focus in on that little girl."
"It's sacred, those first few months, for all babies but especially for the premature," he explains. "It's a sacred time. They should focus on the child."
Dr. Oz reveals that his own pre-term son left the hospital after just two days at the hospital, but once home, "he would turn blue and pass out, which would scare me. And I'm a doctor, so maybe they let him to my care [early], but it's a little nerve-wracking." The Oprah-approved celebrity doctor has four kids, Daphne, Arabella, Zoe and Oliver, with his wife Lisa.
