Our article on coping with the NICU has tips to help you feel comfortable in the NICU. But it’s also your baby’s nursery, their home away from home. The NICU might feel like a strange environment for your baby, you and your family. NICU staff often organise information sessions for parents – for example, sessions on baby massage – or social get-togethers. These staff can talk with you and help you with some of the challenges of having a baby in the NICU – for example, worry and anxiety, family complications, or concerns about your baby’s development. NICUs also have other visiting professionals to help both parents and babies, including physiotherapists, occupational therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, speech pathologists, social workers and pastoral care workers. Other paediatric specialists like cardiologists, ophthalmologists, neurologists or surgeons might also visit some babies. Laboratory, echocardiogram and X-ray technicians visit the NICU regularly. Some NICUs are happy for you to be there during ward rounds and to ask questions. There’s always a neonatologist on duty, and you can ask to speak to this person. These doctors have first trained as paediatricians and then done further training as neonatologists. These are doctors who are specialists in newborn care, which is also called neonatal care. You can ask to speak to the nurses in charge. There are also managers of NICU sections and usually one nurse who is in charge of the whole NICU. When staff shifts change, your baby’s nurse will tell the new nurse about how your baby is going and what your baby needs. The nurse will know about recent test results, changes in how your baby is being cared for, and your baby’s condition over the previous few hours. Your baby’s nurse will be able to tell you most things about your baby’s medical condition. This nurse has completed a nursing degree and then done extra study in nursing sick or premature babies. NICU staffĮach baby in a NICU has a highly qualified bedside nurse assigned to them. This can help it feel more familiar when you visit your baby there after the birth. If you know or think your baby is going to be born early, you can prepare for premature birth by asking to see the NICU. If an alert sounds on a monitor attached to your baby, you can ask your baby’s nurse what the alert means. Sometimes monitors will sound even when babies are fine. Monitors will sound to alert the staff if a baby’s breathing or heart rate is out of the normal range. The NICU is usually a calm place, with nurses and doctors quietly looking after the babies and other specialists coming in and out.
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