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Preemies
S/O family involvement in the NICU....
Just out of curiosity, was it the norm in your NICU to have most families who participated in LO's care, or did you have many babies whose family simply "wasn't around"? I must say that our NICU has mostly cases involving social workers placing the babies. There were several incidences during our 6 week stay there where children had NEVER been visited, and two other situations where the mother was told her baby could come home on such and such a date and she did not show up. One said she " had trouble finding a cab" and another said she "forgot". Both showed up over a week later. We had other instances where mothers came, but brought absolutely nothing with them to prepare. No change of clothes for baby, no car seat, etc. And there were mothers that refused to take the apnea training or CPR classes which were discharge requirements because they "didn't feel like it." Yeah, I would have to say DH and I were in the minority as far as our involvement. Of course, I live in NYC, sooooooo.........we get all types here!
BFP #1 - Chemical Pregnancy ----BFP#2 - DD born at 32 weeks-----BFP #3 Spontaneous Identical Twin Boys lost due to Missed M/C - on 7/1/11----BFP #4 Baby girl lost due to Trisomy 22 on 1/6/12
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Re: S/O family involvement in the NICU....
Cooper was in level 3 for most of our stay, and our NICU didn't encourage parents to hang around as much as they did when the baby was in level 2. Most babies came and went very quickly, but from my conversations with the nurses, a lot did not have good home situations.
One of the nurses told us that they had parents who would be staying at Ronald Mcdonald house, withing a 2 minute walk and STILL never come to see their babies.
We saw the DCF van at the hospital on many occasions, coming to pick up NICU babies. It was really sad, but made me so much more impressed with the parents I would see showing up late at night in their work uniforms, who obviously didn't have the same freedom that I did to be there constantly.
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There was one baby whose mom was a crackhead (for real) and DYFS was all over her, but she was there everyday. There was also a 15 yo mom who wasn't sure if she was giving the baby up for adoption, she changed her mind at least 2x a day, but both she and the potential adoptive mother visited daily. There was one little boy whose parents were there alot while mom was in the hospital, but once she was discharged we never saw them again (and I was there about 13-14 hours a day, and their LO was there 9 days while our LO was there). They had no other children and they lived closer to the hospital than we did.
There are a few other families I have seen, but w/o being able to drive right now and only going in the evening with DH, there could be a lot more coming at different times of the day.
The other day the nurses were talking about a micro-preemie whose parents don't want to see him at all. I find that really sad:( But, some people just can't deal with this situation. I wish none of us had to deal with it.
Yep...we learned this about several families in our NICU. We got to "know" a little boy b/c he and DS always had the same primary nurses. We never saw his family and I casually asked one of the nurses one night when we were there late and she said, "Oh, you'll see them soon...they live 2 hours away so they can't get here until almost 10pm and stay until midnight"...it just broke my heart and made me so thankful that I was there every night with my little guy...
I got transfered off base to the 'public' hospital in the bad part of town. It has the oldest NICU in Vegas and has a bad reputation. It also had the most amazing NICU doctors in the world.. but they didnt not have private rooms or steak dinners after delivery or any of the other stuff the newer hospitals fuss about.
I would say that most of the critical and/or younger (under 30 week) babies got a lot of parental visits. I think some of the older babies that we not as serious did not get visits, at least as much if at all.. I didn't really keep track of it. We were in the like extreme preemie corner, with all the 20-something weekers and so we always saw other parents. When we went to the step-down/intermediate nursery, that wasn't the case.
When LO was first admitted, they asked me if her last name was going to change.. I was totally confused. I didn't understand how her last name could/would change. The social worker told me that about 50% of the babies in the NICU have their names changed while there because the Dad goes MIA while the baby is sick and so the Mom changes it to her last name or whatever.
There was also a baby that was transfered up to the peds floor because of his age. He had some serious medical problems, but mom and dad never came to get him. It took CPS over 4 months to transfer him into their care. He celebrated his first birthday with the doctors and nurses.
No, I am sure no one did! I definitely reserved judgement for the babies that I didn't see people there during the day/night. You never know what someone's situation might be. The sad thing for me was the ones whose mothers clearly were unfit and/or didn't seem to want anything to do with them.
That's heartbreaking! We did notice that some of the babies in our room (12 total) didn't seem to have their parents around much. I remember one BIG baby (almost 11lbs.) that was next to Simon. His dad came a couple time during his 2 week stay. All he did was feed his son everytime he saw him. The nurses tried to explain that big baby had eaten 1hr. ago, but the dad only spoke spanish and didn't understand. The mom never came to visit except for discharge day. I heard the nurses say that mom didn't come b/c she was recovering from a c-section. Ummm...hello, I had a c-section and my a** was in the NICU several times a day. Anyways, on discharge day, the mom, dad, aunt, and niece came to take the baby home. The parents were asking the 10-year-old neice to translate what the nurse was saying. The aunt (sis to the mom) was telling the mom how to care for the baby (how to feed, change diapers, etc.). Mom hadn't done ANY of that stuff and the nurse was trying to explain that she wouldn't discharge the baby until she was confident mom could care for the baby. Eventually, the baby went home, but I just felt so horrible for this kid.
So frustrating!
We were there a long time and in the open room for flippin' ever, so we saw a lot, but all the babies I saw were well cared for. Most people weren't there as much as I was, but I was sort of a hard case. Honestly, I got really anxious anywhere BUT the NICU, so I had to be there for my own sanity.
When we first stepped down, there was a family across the room from us who apparently were being investigated by CPS and were really talking about it a lot, but they were there, so I don't know.. that was weird.
And we had a roomie towards the end of our stay (three babies in that room) who had parents who weren't around much. They drove me the most crazy because they were both heavy, heavy smokers and would come in just wreaking of smoke and hold their baby. it was so bad that I'd put Robbie back in his isolette to escape the fumes from their clothes. The parents of the other child in the room and I both complained to the nurses because we felt like we couldn't hold our children because of exposure to them.
I saw them for maybe a half an hour or 45 minutes every few days. She was often at the hospital.. I'd see them downstairs smoking, or her laying in the lounge, but she wasn't in with the baby a lot. She was nice and when she was there seemed to genuinely love the baby, but they were just odd.
But by and large, everyone around us were very loving, compassionate, good parents from all appearances.
I know we had a roomate at one point whose parents I didn't see much but it turned out he was a twin whose brother had gone home a few days prior, plus they had a 3yo brother and the parents were really struggling to divide the time between every one.
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That *is* a frustrating situation - shouldn't the hospital have had a translator on staff? Even people who are ordinarily fluent in English can have trouble operating in something that isn't their native language when they're stressed. It's medically irresponsible for the hospital not to make a better effort to provide information to parents who don't speak English.
We could only visit at night during the week because we needed family to stay with Sam and DH was working plus I couldn't drive from the c/s. He was a favorite with the "cuddler" volunteers when we weren't there.
It sucked, I felt like we spent more time in the car (45 mins each way) than with Jake. We were in Level 3 and a lot of the babies had visitors most of the time we were there (7-9pm). And it was packed on weekends.
When DD was in the NICU I saw several babies who never had a "Parent" come and visit them. I wasn't sure what was going on. DH would go very early in the morning and I would go all day and then later at night to be with DD. It hurt me so much to leave her at night alone, but DH and I both had to get our sleep. I never asked the nurses about the other babies, because I didn't want to be rude. But I know of at least a few babies who's parents and grandparents came to visit them daily. Everything that the NICU recommended we did. We did the 12 hour stay with DD and we did the CPR classes too.
I just don't get why parents aren't around.