Anyone never have a NICU follow-up?

Mrs Manners · March 2009

I see posts about these all the time. We never had one and I never even heard of it until I came on this board. Our hospital delivers more babies than any other in the country and has a premier NICU so it's not like they don't know what they're doing or have the proper staff.

Is it because he was a 33 weeker?

What happens at the follow up?

kcswifey · March 2009

We never had one either...I don't know why...

ijack · March 2009

We didn't have one either

KellyMichelle · March 2009

We didn't have one. Our hospital just doesn't do them.

Mrs. Destructo · March 2009

I don't think our NICU does followups, but I'm not positive. We moved when the guys were 6 months old, and we recently enrolled them in a different NICU followup program... though they haven't had an appointment yet.

preemieparent · March 2009

I think hospitals either do follow-ups or do not. They shouldn't leave a preemie out based on gestational age because that wouldn't give them accurate information. I think it often comes down to funding and staffing.

Dominic actually didn't go to the NICU follow-up because Stanford bills your insurance for it and our doctor's HMO group denied it because they said the follow-up program didn't offer anything that wasn't offered through them. I was a bit mad about that because it would have been a great opportunity to see a bunch of top specialists at once but whatever.

Mrs.DMC · March 2009

I was never told about one. As far as I know, no follow-up for us.

Susan_KW · March 2009

We didn't. Our NICU did do follow-ups, but we didn't qualify for it. I don't think it was an insurance issue. I was told that Zoe didn't qualify for a follow up by our NICU's standards.

~Baby1~ · April 2009

We never had one and we weren't told we should have one.

njkaren · April 2009

We had one in December and we have our second one tomorrow. They will continue to see Brandon every 3-4 months until he is 2. At our first visit to the developmental clinic Brandon was evaluated by a physical therapist and seen by one of the neonatologists from the NICU. I have heard he will sometimes also be seen by an occupational therapist, speech therapist, and psychologist. They make sure he is developing as he should be and made a few suggestions of things that I can work on with him at home. I found it very helpful.