Some thoughts on parenting in the NICU

Being a parent in the NICU is sort of a strange experience. Especially a first time parent. There is a lot of parental training required. Andy and I have watched hours of training videos (Don't Shake Your Baby, "Back" to Sleep, Car Seats, CPR, RSV, etc.), gotten stacks of handouts, have to go to car seat training, have the therapist show us how to feed, change, hold the baby, stay the night with the baby, etc. At first it seemed strange to me since when you have a term baby, you get a night in the Mother-Baby unit - then they send you home to figure this stuff out yourself. However, after 2+ weeks here, I think that it is starting to make some sense to me.

There are some parents here whose babies are in the NICU for months and months. Nora may be close to one month before she leaves. I think when so much time goes by, it starts to feel normal. Then, it is probably even more overwhelming when the NICU parents bring the babies home. While the nurses try to have us as the parents do many of the "parenting" tasks (change her, take her temperature, bathe her, feed her, etc.) - we can always go home or out to dinner and know that the nurses here will take care of these tasks for us. All of these "parenting" tasks take place in a stressful environment (constant alarms, no privacy, nurses looking over your shoulder while you change and feed the baby, doctors popping in a delivering dire news for 5 minutes then leaving). I have even found a study published by the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine that finds that parents of NICU babies are at risk for developing Acute Stress Disorder and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I think that this is part of the reason that so much more training is given to NICU parents.

The other reason is that parents of NICU infants are often leading some pretty risky lifestyles. Many of the types of women who have preterm babies are those on drugs, homeless, abused, mental disorders, alcohol and drug users with no prenatal care. These parents have many other problems than visiting their kids in the NICU like transportation, other children, shelter, food, etc. Combine those problems with a 3 month stay in the NICU and it is a recipe for a bad outcome when the baby finally is released. The nurses have told us that it is not uncommon for parents to rarely visit their babies when they have been here for a while. Many of the nurses have commented that we are good parents so far. I think because we show up every day and have lots of questions about her progress.

So, after all of our NICU training - we should be pro parents when we bring Nora home. We have a one hour car seat class on Monday and I have to watch a few more videos on breastfeeding a preemie. We also have to do our overnight stay in the "practice" family room here when she is close to going home. We still have to do in-person CPR training (already saw the video). I have a few more training sessions with the lactation consultant and we are encouraged to go to the Tuesday afternoon NICU parents "Scrapbooking Club" - (I think I may skip that one). It is busy here in the NICU!