NICU
Just because you were born a bit earlier, we get to comfort, love, and cherish you a bit sooner - Alvaretta Roberts
image by: Peter K Burian
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Dumbledore in the NICU
My daughter is lying in Bed No. 3, a clear plastic box in the neonatal intensive care unit at New York Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn. She is attached to the wall by a jangle of colored wires, each tracking the strength of her uncertain grasp on this world. She is 6 days old.
My mother whispers to her, “I am with you.” These are her first words in more than four years.
Soon before she died in 2009, my mother wrote a letter to the grandchild she would never meet. It sat in a safe-deposit box on Montague Street, unopened, waiting for me to find my way to fatherhood. Last week my wife, Kyra, gave birth to our first child, and it was time to get the letter.
I was…
Resources
Angels In The NICU
September is Neonatal Intensive Care Unit month. As this month comes to a close, I think of the babies. The parents. The families. The doctors. The nurses. All of the faces who come together to celebrate highs, lows, and everything in between. And it all becomes clear. My mother is an angel. NICU nurses are angels. They’re angels in scrubs.
How one hospital protected newborn babies from medical errors — just by changing their wristbands
Unlike other health-care improvements, which often take more staff or money to implement, this one seems relatively easy: Just typing something different into babies' wristband labels can help hospitals prevent thousands of mistakes.
Saving Babies' Lives by Carrying Them Like Kangaroos
Skin-to-skin contact sustains premature babies where incubators are limited. It may even be the best form of neonatal care, period.
The Neonatal ICU Gets a Makeover
Hospitals are taking premature infants out of isolated incubators and into rooms where they can have close contact with their parents.
Time to Leave the N.I.C.U. Behind
It’s about time. The last week has been hard for us, mainly because, as great a job as the N.I.C.U. nurses were doing taking care of Evy, we wanted to be the ones to be there for her when she needed something. As scary as the idea is of being responsible for this little fighter on our own, without the help of those fantastic nurses, we feel we’re as ready as we’re ever going to be to have her home with us. We want to be the ones who know her best; right now, the nurses know her much better than we do, because they care for her 85 percent of the time.
9 Things NICU Nurses Want New Parents To Know
In partnership with the March of Dimes, we bring you some of the very best tips and words of wisdom from NICU nurses at hospitals around the country...
Baby Gap
Throwing money at unproven programs for preventing prematurity, or at cash-cow NICUs, won't improve America's infant-morality rate. Instead, it's critical to follow the data—which suggest that we need fewer, not more, hospitals to take care of the sickest babies.
Doctors Are Figuring Out How to Treat Babies Born Dependent on Opioids
Ehrlich says one of the problems facing this field of study is the lack of standardization for care. Each hospital has had to come up with their own set of guidelines for treating neonatal opioid withdrawal, since this is such a new field.
How Hospitals Are Becoming Safer for Children
I walked out of the NICU with my laptop in hand, feeling grateful for people like her who keep our children safe and the rest of us in line.
Kangaroo Care Still Benefits Preemies 20 Years Later
For the most fragile newborns—those born as preemies or with a very low birth weight—the simplest, most natural intervention in the world can have a profound impact on their survival and long-term health—even 20 years later.
Dumbledore in the NICU
My daughter is lying in Bed No. 3, a clear plastic box in the neonatal intensive care unit at New York Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn. She is attached to the wall by a jangle of colored wires, each tracking the strength of her uncertain grasp on this world. She is 6 days old. My mother whispers to her, “I am with you.” These are her first words in more than four years.
17 Ways To Help Preemie Parents In The NICU
While every family is different, these tips can offer some guidance to the wonderful people supporting preemie parents in the NICU.
5 Newborn Tests And Treatments Your Baby In NICU Probably Doesn't Need
That’s not to say the tests and treatments in the list below should never be used. Rather, they should be ordered when there is a reason to do so instead of simply being the default.
7 Things I Wish I Had Done During NICU
When our twins were born nine weeks premature, we were thrust into a fog of fear, separation and numbness. Looking back now, there are so many things I wish someone had told me to consider doing. Twenty months later, there are things that I think could have helped and other things I wish I had to look back on. If you or someone you know is currently living through NICU, or you are likely to spend time in NICU ,then these are the seven things I wish I could go back and suggest to myself.
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