Premature births take many journeys that are highlighted during Prematurity Awareness Month. While thousands of NICU babies successfully transition home to their families every year, it’s important to honor the little ones lost during their hospital stay. This year we highlight Norah Marie Wilson and the Norah Foundation’s Always Together project – the effort that brought the first NICU cameras to Northern California.
Once considered an adjunct to the care of neonates, neonatal therapists are now recognized as an essential part of the NICU team based on their expertise in feeding and development. Occupational therapists, physical therapists, and speech-language pathologists can all be qualified to work as part of the NICU healthcare team and bring hands-on skills for care of the tiniest and most medically fragile infants.
Multiple studies have found that viewing their child on a webcam can impact milk production for families with children in the hospital. This is great news given the benefits of human milk for hospitalized infants. The fact that parents viewing their child on a webcam can noticeably impact milk production is also great news for hospitals, who now have yet another way to better support families in meeting satisfaction goals.
Last year AngelEye Health announced its MilkTracker milk and feeding management application, the fourth solution in their family engagement portfolio. We recently sat down with Seamaf Bchihalouk, product manager and head of the original MilkTracker development team, and Grace Goodwin Dwyer, MS, MA, RD, IBCLC, registered dietitian & lactation consultant, to catch up and discuss the evolution of the offering.
Ever wonder exactly how breast milk improves health? Breast milk is packed full of active ingredients like antibodies and antibacterial cells and is tailor-made to promote babies’ wellbeing. And the benefits don’t stop there: breastfeeding can help mothers recover after birth. Read on to explore the medical benefits of breastfeeding for both babies and mothers, plus get tips for when and how to seek breastfeeding support.
Breast milk and formula barcode scanning technology is a best practice for safe feeding and an efficiency booster for staff. Among competing hospital priorities, you might only have one chance to make a case for purchasing and implementing this technology. This blog shares our top tips to help frame the most compelling argument for this investment and develop a winning case for your executive leadership team.
Celebrating Lactation in the NICU. World Breastfeeding Week and National Breastfeeding Month in August gave us reasons to elevate the conversation about breastfeeding and mothers’ own milk as key ingredients for healthy infants and children.
AngelEye Health recently sat down to catch up with Kati Knudsen, PT, NPT, CNT, DCS, CLE, lead therapist, in-patient, pediatrics & NICU, at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center. Kati is a seasoned pediatric and NICU therapist with more than 20 years of direct in-patient experience.
They say that the destination of a flight completely changes if the trajectory is moved by one degree. Earlier this year, one of my most exciting projects to date went live. As a project manager for most of my healthcare career, I have had plenty of ‘Go Lives’ but not one that has tugged on my heart strings like this one did; especially one story in particular (but we’ll get to that- hang in there with me).
My son was born at 28 weeks gestation and then spent 99 very long days in the NICU. It wasn’t until we had been home for several months that I started to process the trauma and isolation I experienced throughout his NICU stay.
Over the years, I have had the opportunity to provide emotional support to many mothers whose babies were admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). As a NICU nurse, I would recite the same comforting words to each mother as she was discharged and forced to leave the hospital without her newborn. It was not until I had to leave my 28-week son, Theo, in the NICU that I fully understood the trauma of being physically separated from him.