spinoff to sibling visitation

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Specializes in Level III NICU.

What is your unit's policy on sibling visitation? I mean, age requirements, time limitations, etc. Where I work, we limit visitation to those over 4, and 15 minutes. During RSV season, no sibling visitors under 13. We're moving towards being more family-centered, so I'm wondering what we can do to change this so siblings can be more involved.

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Specializes in NICU and neonatal transport.

We allow all siblings at any time regardless. Except if they have colds etc but thats the same for anyone.

Other kids its over 16s only, even if it's mums little brother or whatever.

Would love to just wave the babies through a window and have no visiting in iintensive but that's not very family centred is it?!!

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Specializes in Neonatal ICU (Cardiothoracic).

Siblings must be over 4 y/o, wear a mask during RSV season....that's about it! They can be the 3rd person at the bedside. (we normally allow only 2 people)

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Specializes in nursery, L and D.

We only take feeder/grower type babies. Stablize and ship any critical babies. We allow all siblings of the baby, any age, except if they are sick. We don't usually have time limits, but docs recently have started writing orders for limits on visitation (had one to say 1 hour a day, mom was really upset!) they say the baby will lose wt and hgb/hct will drop with prolonged visits. Anyway, thats how we do it. Oh, and we only allow parents, grandparents, and sibling visits.

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Specializes in NICU.

We are a "family centered care" unit but put limits on visits by children. Under six needs a Doc order, over six needs to be a sibling and is limited to 10 minutes.

I don't think its worth the risk to the neonates or the visiting children to push for longer or less restrictive visitation. Its easy to forget that it *is* an intensive care unit after all.

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