Any experiences with disappearing NICU parents?

Gompers, BSN, RN · Jan 17, 2004

I don't remember parents suddenly abandoning their baby like on "ER" but we do have parents kind of slowly do so.

They're most often the parents with major substance abuse problems, and their visits just grow more and more infrequent. Contracts are made up with social work as to how often they need to call and visit, and over time they just stop contacting us altogether. Then we get DCFS to take custody and the baby ends up going to foster care or a group home.

The saddest thing is that these babies tend to have severe problems due to maternal substance abuse and prematurity, and at first the parents are always saying, "Do EVERYTHING to save my baby!" even though the baby already has so much damage. So we do everything, and then they sometimes abandon the baby in the end. Maybe guilt, maybe fear, maybe drugs.

NicuGal, MSN, RN · Jan 17, 2004

The reason that the family on ER abandoned the baby is because they were from China...and they can have one child there, so why hold out for the unhealthy one? And boys are preferred over girls.

We have had a few parents disappear and reappear, but those kids are in the system anyways.

blondielaine7rn · Jan 18, 2004

Thanks- I start in a nicu next month & was just wondering if it's all that common. It's just a really sad situation. In nursing school, I saw a nicu baby with ambiguous genitalia whose mom had abandoned it (no father in the picture either). I felt so sorry for the baby- its life would be troubling enough as it is. I did already know about the China situation-that is so sad. I don't think I'd like to be a nicu social worker at all.