Extreme Couponing!

This week we decided to stay on the lighter side of things. Having a baby in the NICU can be a major financial burden, no matter how financially stable mom and dad were prior to baby's arrival. So, Amy decided to teach the parents a great way to save some money: extreme couponing! Amy, an experienced coupon-er herself, taught an hour long "Couponing 101" class for our biggest crowd yet. She received rave reviews, and many of the parents could not wait to buy up 6-8 copies of this week's Birmingham News and get started saving.

If you are interested in learning more about extreme couponing, here are a couple of great websites:



Next week will be my last "official" week with NICU Family Support, but I plan to visit as frequently as my fall schedule with allow (here's hoping pediatrics and adult health will go easy on us!).

PALs for the NICU Parents

This week, the WIC chaplain, Virginia, came and spoke to our moms. She had a fantastic presentation on coping with the stress of having a newborn in the ICU. She used the acronym "PALs" to represent the need for people, acceptance, and learning. This presentation brought out many emotions for the moms, and offered a great opportunity for the moms who had been there longer to encourage our new moms.

I plan to update this post soon with a great video on Kangaroo Care, but I am currently having some technical difficulties!

"Feeding: The Last Hurdle"

This week we invited a speech pathologist to speak to our parents. Believe it or not, they play a huge role in teaching the premies how to suck, swallow, and breathe, which is often the last "hurdle" before the baby can be sent home. She spoke about techniques for feeding, such as semi-upright positioning (holding the baby at about a 45-60 degree angle) or side-lying positioning for proper digestion. She suggested slow-flow nipples for bottle-feedings, and reminded the parents to always feed in a calm, quiet environment. She also mentioned Kangaroo Care's benefits on feedings (YAY!). In my experience, this parent hour has been one of our most successful hours because all of the parents are anxious to see their baby eating so that they can go home!

I am still trying to figure out ways to further encourage Kangaroo/Skin-to-skin care. Since the March of Dimes is a national organization, and UAB is an academic hospital, they have already thought of many of the ideas I have suggested. However, we are continuing to brain storm to determine the best way(s) to increase the use of this important therapy.

A little bit about RNICU Family Support.

March of Dimes provides weekly family support for the families of patients in the Regional Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (RNICU) and UAB's Continuing Care Nursery (CCN). This support consists of weekly "Parent Hours". At parent hour, a professional is invited to educate the parents/family members on aspects of the neonate's care. These professionals range from a speech pathologist, who speaks on feedings, to a librarian who speaks on searching for valid information on their infant's healthcare. Each week, scrap booking is also held for the parents. These 2-3 hour sessions are a time for moms and dads to swap stories while creating scrapbooks of their baby's time in NICU. March of Dimes also holds holiday parties, such as a Father's Day ice cream sundae party and a Forth of July Popcycles and Fireworks party.

It is my hope to be able to post pictures of some of these events at some point if I am able to get consent.

New Specialist!

I just want to welcome our new NICU Family Support Specialist, Amy. She has such a heart for these families...she moved all the way from West Virginia to take this job. She is already great in the position, and I look forward to working with her for the remainder of the summer!

Did you know...?

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with kangaroo care, here are a few "quick facts":

Kangaroo care is also referred to as "Skin-to-skin" or may be abreviated as KC.

Kangaroo care is the practice of holding a neonate skin on skin. For premies, KC mimics the feeling of being in the womb.

Kangaroo care is effective when performed by anyone (from mom, dad, grandparent, etc.); however, hospital policy on visitors may vary.

Kangaroo care provides EXTRAORDINARY benefits for baby AND mom including:
*Improved infant temperature, heart rate, and respiratory rate.
*Improved sleeping patterns- and growing premies NEED their sleep.
*Pain control for infants during painful procedures such as injections.
*Improved maternal/infant bonding <-- this is critical during those first few scary days!

Kangaroo care can be safely performed on intubated babies and can performed on twins simultaneously.

Studies have been performed to back up ALL of these statements! So..are you a member of the Kangaroo Club?

WELCOME!

Hello blogger world!
My name is Emily Johnson, and I am a third semester nursing student in the UAB Honors in Nursing program. In this program, we {each student} dedicate three semesters to developing and implementing a service learning project. I chose to partner with March of Dimes, a national, non-profit organization dedicated to bringing healthier babies into the world {for more info on March of Dimes, visit there website @ http://www.marchofdimes.com/).
One major component of March of Dimes' work is their NICU Family Support Program. This program provides educational and emotional support to the moms, dads, and siblings of the premies and sick babies in Neonatal Intensive Care Units throughout the United States. My service learning project involves partnering with the staff of the family support program to increase the use of kangaroo care in UAB Hospital's Regional Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. I look forward to keeping the World Wide Web up to date on my project, and hope that my readers will bear with me as I {slowly} learn the ropes of blogging.