When Parents Can’t Hold Their Preemies, Hospitals Are Doing This Instead
Nothing can ever truly prepare a parent for having their baby sent to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) after delivery. No amount of reading or planning can make it any easier. And when a global pandemic hits, all of that fear and stress is only compounded, making the NICU experience even more challenging.
“All the baby books tell you is that you’re going to go into labour, deliver a beautiful baby, and then go home to visitors and gifts. But when a baby is born sick or prematurely and has to come to the NICU, especially during a pandemic, the whole experience for the family suddenly changes,” Alison Drabble, patient care manager of the NICU at St. Joseph’s Health Centre, told HuffPost Canada.
COVID-19 has had a major impact on Canadian hospitals, affecting everything from visiting rules to the availability of life-saving equipment to the operation volunteer programs. And this is keenly felt by new parents who’ve found themselves with an infant in the NICU.
Babies respond to touch. It’s in those early days after birth that they begin to attach to their caregivers. They’re wired that way.
“Most moms get the chance to experience skin-to-skin, and see their baby within seconds of birth,” Taryn Gibb, a new mother from Whitby, Ont., wrote in an Instagram post on Thursday. “Most moms get to snuggle and bond with the child they’ve been growing for nine months. Not this mom.”
Immediately after Gibb’s son was born prematurely, he was “whisked away” to the NICU, where a team of nurses, physicians and neonatologists would begin taking care of him. Gibb didn’t get to see him for 24 hours after his birth.
A post shared by Taryn It Up (@tarynitup.blog) on Apr 30, 2020 at 12:43pm PDT
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