Any 22 weekers out there?

LovingPeds, MSN, APRN, NP · May 30, 2020

8 hours ago, Whull1 said:
But this kid is everything to us. He solidified my passion for NICU, so much so I am graduating this December with my DNP-NNP. I fight for these micro's and give their parents hope. I allow them to have their joy and share their pain if their little ones don't make it. I know what it's like being in their shoes and seeing their kid be poked and prodded and not being able to do anything about it. I fight to let parents do skin-to-skin with these "fetuses" because literature says it helps. I comfort the parents when they cry because they got to touch their kid or hold their kid, cause no one else would let them.

I'm glad to read this. The NICU I last floated to did not routinely do skin to skin. My coworker who was a NICU nurse for 20 years before being hired on peds and I spent one night discussing it. At her old facility, parents would recline next to their child's crib and do skin to skin for hours. Here, if it was done at all it was for 15 to 20 minutes at a time even in stronger "feeder grower" babies. Skin-to-skin has shown such great outcomes and has demonstrated the ability to help stabilize these little ones. I don't understand why it isn't implemented more. Some of the nurses in the NICU I worked with showed signs of irritation when they were told parents had arrived which was quickly covered with a smile when the parents spoke to them. Others were genuinely glad to see the parents. I have often wondered how much this NICU's culture played into the lack of kangaroo care. Even infants on a ventilator can be given kangaroo care if tolerated. And there are things that even parents of children on IVH precautions can do to bond with their child. I'm glad that you're doing what you can to help these parents in a difficult situation bond with their child.

I was fortunate enough to be able to speak with a NICU nurse from Nigeria via web conference while taking an elective class for my BSN. She spoke of the number of infants, the shortage of NICU nurses and equipment, and the fact the parents all stayed with the babies. They did kangaroo care as a practice with all babies because there was a shortage of incubators. Every baby got breast milk and were breast fed because there was no guarantee that there was safe water once discharged. The average length of stay was surprisingly short per US comparison. Given the odds against them, even with the high infant death rate in the country, the number of premature infants who survived and thrived given these factors were amazing.

Nunya, BSN · May 11, 2021

On 1/6/2020 at 5:22 PM, tralalaRN said:

I tried to delete this because I wrote essentially what someone else did, unfortunately I didn't read her comment before I wrote mine.