Visitation in the NICU

BrittanyRN · Oct 20, 2005

At our facility we don't consider our parents "visitors!" Therefore they can be at the bedside 22 hrs a day if they choose. They must step out of our care rooms for an hour in the am and an hour in the pm for shift change. But even then they don't have to leave they can go to the family room or cafe. Other visitors can visit if the parents are present from 1-3 and 8-10.

LydiaNN · Oct 21, 2005

To the best of my knowledge, none of our area NICUs (and we've got 14 of them!) restrict parents from being with their baby (they shouldn't be considered visitors!) at any time other than shift change.

sunnysideup09 · Oct 21, 2005

We have gotten more liberal also....parents and visitors can visit anytime except 7 - 730 am/pm. Parents should not be limited to 30 minutes....that's not even quality time for kangaroo care or to be with an infant.

Christine, RNC, BSN

RNin2007 · Oct 21, 2005

My two kids spent 6 months combined in the NICU. I probably spent 12-14 hrs a day in the unit (big teaching hospital as well). There is no way they could have restricted me like that. I would have had them transferred the heck out of there with policies like that, sheesh. Studies have shown how beneficial kangaroo care is (skin to skin) and preemies are soothed by hearing a familiar voice in such chaos. I am sorry to hear they would do such a thing to these babies. Shame on them.

~J (mom of former 680gm and 970gm preemies)

mstigerlily · Oct 21, 2005

That is crazy! 30 minutes!!! Ours excludes parents ("visitors") only during change of shift between 6:30-8:00.

I have recently left a big teaching hospital where the NICU visitation policy was very liberal, and started working at a small, rural hospital where visitation is much more limited. Currently, families are only allowed to visit one hour at a time, with no visitation from 6-8:30, am and pm. Now, my manager wants to implement a new visitation policy where parents can only visit for 30 minutes a a time, with no visitation allowed between 6:00-9:00, both am and pm. What are your current NICU visitation hours and how long at a time can families visit?

prmenrs, RN · Oct 21, 2005

That is certainly not "evidence-based practice"! Nor is it "standard of care" in most communities.

I live in the same area as Mercy, so the hospitals around here have fairly unlimited visiting. How in the world do you have successful breastfeeding w/such limited visiting? How do you get all the teaching done?

BittyBabyGrower, MSN, RN · Oct 21, 2005

For us: Our parents have unlimited visitation....we ask them to leave during rounds and report, but if a mom is feeding we will step out in the hall or conference room. Other family members/friends, siblings can come between 10a and 830p, we do limit siblings to 45 minutes (unless they are a lot older and well behaved....the little ones just start getting ornery) and we do limit outside visitors to 2 extra per day per family...grandparents are excluded from this and can visit any time during 10-830 without the parents, as long as it is okay with them.

1/2 an hour...what if the nurse is really tied up and can't get Jr out for them and then they have to forfeit their time? What is she basing this on? I think this needs to be brought up to your administrators and with the patient satisfaction commitees!

Q. · Oct 21, 2005

30 minutes???? That is INSANE!!

My premature twins spent a month in the NICU at a large teaching hospital and we could visit any time of day or night and stay as long as we wanted. They also had family rooms where if the baby was stable enough, we could take them out and be more comfortable. Otherwise, we stayed at their crib side.

We were also allowed to stay during report. The nursery was arranged in pods, so if they were giving report about another infant, we couldn't really hear it anyway. Report was given about each baby in each of their pods. And naturally, we could listen to report of our own children.

Each pod could be made private by curtains - my husband and I would spend hours there feeding and just plain bonding with our twins. A 30 minute visitation policy is ludicrous! Not to mention, how can you do patient teaching on infant cares if parents are only allowed to visit for 30 minutes? And the no visitation from 6-8:30pm? In my opinion that is prime time for parents to visit. We used to visit right after work from 6pm until 11pm.

Balder_LPN, LPN · Oct 21, 2005

how horrible for those parents!!!

how really horrible for those babies :no:

fergus51 · Oct 21, 2005

That's a terrible policy. We only ask parents to leave for shift change (6:30-7:30 am and pm).

ncbeachgrl · Oct 21, 2005

I agree with all of you that our current, "one hour at at time" visitation, much less a 30 minute visitation is insane. I have had an extremely hard time adjusting to this hospital, and if it weren't for my husband's job, I would have quit by now! I works nights, and all of the nurses let the parents stay as long as they want, and ask them to step out when there is an admission or if a baby decompensates. On dayshift, the nurses have no problem telling parents to leave at the one hour limit. We are an extremly small level II unit, so anything less than 29 weeks is rare. I have had nurses (both days and nights) laugh when I have brought up kangaroo care. And of course when it comes to teaching, the parents need to stay longer to receive instruction, so again, the proposed policy, or even the current one, gets thrown out the window. I was totally floored when I heard that we may be making our current strict policy even more so. I have voiced my disgust (literally) with the proposed policy, as it pertains to length of breastfeeding, developmental care and conservation of energy to take an infant out, hand them to mom/dad and then put them back 20 minutes later. I think I may be alone in this disagreement, though.