Food In The Nicu

ambroseacoustics · Sep 15, 2008

I may be in the same facility as NANSNURSE. Our facility has opened a new W&C hospital under the banner of "family-centered care". Food and drink policies are still being worked out with a leaning toward covered drinks only. The NICU has private rooms for each patient. The rooms are about 150 square feet with a recliner type chair and a folddown type chair within a curtained area on the far corner of the room. This design keeps the "family area" very separate from the the patient. So we will have to see if families honor or abuse this system. There are no fridges or TV's in the patient rooms. There is a family area with lockers, kitchen, lounge, TV's, computers, and family sleep rooms.

kitty29 · Sep 16, 2008

Hi there all,
Our hospital is about to embark on a very exciting time. We are getting ready to open a new women's and children's hospital and are going to individual patient rooms for the NICU. Here's the catch...management wants to allow parents to have food in the rooms. All the nurses do not. So the question is...What do you do? Do you allow food in your NICU? Please let me know if you have an open style unit or a single patient room unit. THanks so much!!!

JACHO does not allow any food or beaverages in pt care areas and this would include nurses & parents. We are not allowed to do this anymore but we do not have privates.

kitty29 · Sep 16, 2008

No food allowed in our unit either.
I don't know for sure about JCAHO but I have heard that OSHA (Our government's occupational safety and health branch) does not allow food to be in the same area where body fluids and specimens are kept. Supposed to keep people from contracting diseases if the food touches the same counter where an infectious specimen was sitting a few minutes before...
Sigh...

Just discussing this and it is OSHA

TiffyRN, BSN, PhD · Sep 16, 2008

So, OSHA would not be a factor in my State, believe it or not all States allow OSHA to have regulatory power, just consider them to have nice suggested guidelines (much like CDC guidelines). And also, how does one distinguish between parents eating at the bedside of a pediatric patient versus a neonatal patient? I mean, does OSHA give an age cutoff or developmental stage at which parents can start eating at the bedside?

I guess because all I've heard about pediatric units, parents are generally strongly encouraged to stay with their children if not required and then courtesy trays are delivered to the child's room. Maybe that excludes Pedi ICU and Neonatal being considered ICU would be exempt. I don't know, I'm just playing devil's advocate here. Because I really hate being told something is a JCAHO or OSHA thing and it's really just a hospital policy or a physician or nurse manager preference that they don't want to have to change.

Having said all that, once more let me emphasize, I hate hate hate the idea of parents having their nasty food at the bedside. But I've been told too many things are "JCAHO" standards and then finding out it has nothing to do with JCAHO, it was just a physician preference.

lvnurs9 · Sep 18, 2008

Where I came from, we had new private rooms and they had fridges for breast milk only. Where I am traveling now, they have private rooms as well, but the families are allowed to have food and drinks in the fridge with the breast milk. It's a little weird. They are allowed to eat and drink in the rooms as well....

WashingtonNICU · Sep 30, 2008

There should be room for food in the NICU. It is a basic neccessity of life as we ALL know. Breastfeeding mothers need it. Nurses need it. The issue is where it should be consumed. In my the previous NICU I worked in, we provided a common area for parents to eat and play with sibs. It was easily accessible from all patient rooms (yes, we were one of the first to go all private rooms in the NICU). Food does NOT belong in patient care areas. For very critical babies, we provide two sleep rooms for a family each and these two rooms are also separate from patient care areas. :nurse:

ambroseacoustics · Oct 16, 2008

Update: The policy for our new W&C hospital was finalized and determined that parents were allowed to have covered drinks only on the family side of the room. No food or drink is allowed near the patient care side of the room. We are allowed to have covered drinks in the hallway outside of the rooms. However neither JCAHO or OSHA have visited the facility yet. So far I have only had one occasion when I had to tell a mom that she could not take food in the room.