A Look inside an Australian NICU

[gwenith, BSN, RN]

I saw this on the ABC website and thought you might be interested in seeing how it looks inside the Gold Coast NICU - mind you they would have to take a pic of the oldest monitors:rolleyes:

http://www.abc.net.au/goldcoast/stories/s1183736.htm

Reporter: Jane Cowan

Friday, 3 September 2004

A mechanical womb? Humidity cribs keep babies warm and comfortable. Phototherapy treats their jaundice.

A momentous occasion: two of mum's triplets breast feed for the first time.

Hi-tech health: bubs are surrounded by thousands of dollars worth of equipment.

Margot Van Drimmelen attends to one of her 'little clients'.

It was Leo J Burke who said that people who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one.

One place where there is lot of babies but not much sleeping is the Special Care Nursery at the Gold Coast Hospital.

Mum of four-week-old triplets, Rachel Dale, is one of the dozen or so mothers whose babies are in the nursery at any given time. She spends about two hours a day at the hospital, changing nappies and trying to breast feed them occasionally. "I give them lots of cuddles and kisses and just go from one to the other to the other to the other, literally. They're out of their humidity cribs. They've come a long way, it's amazing actually."

Most of the babies in the ward are premature but some are full term but sick, either through diabetic mothers, low birth weight or breathing difficulties. Nurse manager Margot Van Drimmelen has been tending to tiny patients for six years but she says many nurses are apprehensive about treating babies and infants. "It takes a very dedicated nurse and also a very particular nurse. They say that most neonatal nurses have an ounce of obsessive compulsive disorder in them because you have to be quite fanatical."

A tolerance for noise does not go astray either. The average day is a series of nappy changes and feedings, all to the tune of scratchy cries and insistently beeping monitors. The nurses are also on stand by for any deliveries or emergency cesaerians.

Respiratory difficulties are commmon in premature babies, as is jaundice. Babies can also have trouble maintaining their body temperature after birth. "They come from an environment inside their mother where they're 37 degrees out to a cold, air conditioned delivery room. They're totally wet and they get cold very quickly."

The ward's high dependency nursery is a cluttered catalogue of technological innovation. Two ventilators, two high-tech incubator cots and a number of vital signs monitors lie in wait for the next baby. At $12 000 per venilator, Van Drimmelen says nothing is cheap in the health industry, especially when it comes to neonatal medicine.

In one corner, nurse Kath Vandenburg is giving expressed breast milk to a 34-week baby via a gastric tube. And bub doesn't like it one bit. "The suck-swallow-breath reflex is not fully established so we start feeding with tube feeds straight into the stomach to prevent the risk of aspiration. He didn't like me putting that tube in. He's a little distressed there."

This baby is wearing sunshades across his eyes, a telltale sign of the phototherapy he's receiving for jaundice. "It's fairly common in premature babies so we give them phototherapy. We protect their eyes with shades. The parents are usually quite touched because they look like they're lying on the beach with their little sunnies on."

Margot makes no effort to conceal her attachment to the babies. "Yeah we do get attached. We try not to too much because we know they've got to go back to their families. But we get so many mums bringing their babies back to show them off to us, even a year or more later. It's very satisfying."

So have all the nappies and nipples stirred her own maternal urges. "I'd love to be a mum. No, it hasn't put me off at all."

So is she ever tempted to take a favourite bundle home?

"No," Margot laughs, "Eight hours is often enough."

[traumaRUs, MSN, APRN]

Gwenith - thanks for sharing. I've never worked in NICU but have always found it fascinating.

[nekhismom]

Thanks for sharing, Gwenith. That humidity crib looks interesting. I haven't seen one of those here, but I'm wondering if it is similar to our oxyhoods??

[dawngloves, BSN, RN]

Anyone else feel a compulsion to tuck that kid's knees under him? :chuckle