Parents in the NICU Online Course(s) & Continuing Education

Storytelling is the foundation of the human experience and can be an extraordinarily powerful tool used to connect families and healthcare providers in the neonatal intensive care. The NICU is a fast-paced, high stress environment so it’s easy to lose site of the story, but it is the story that can make a difference, not only to the families you serve, but to you as well. It is through storytelling that a compassionate, real approach to care and medicine will bring change to the NICU experience, increase patient satisfaction, and decrease burnout and compassion fatigue. In this presentation you will learn how to develop more empathetic relationships with families on the basis of a deeper understanding of their human experience. Follow Jodi as she explores the principles of storytelling, evaluates the use of narrative medicine in NICU education, and teaches ground breaking strategies to recreate a positive and profound NICU experience through the power of human connections.

This presentation will focus on the nurturing care of extremely preterm infants and their parents. Parent-infant separation is commonplace in NICUs and even more if the infant is born extremely preterm. Parent’s presence could be restricted by the rules and routines in the neonatal intensive care environment and skin-to-skin contact is not always possible due to the infant’s condition. Early and extensive contact between the infant and the parents enables the parents to get to know their infant and to feel and act like parents. At the NICU in Uppsala, Sweden, our experience is that parents, even those who have an extremely preterm infant want to be present and to stay close, 24/7, to their infant during the infants NICU stay. The aim of this presentation is to report clinical experiences from the NICU in Uppsala about how the NICU environment and NICU staff can facilitate or hinder parental presence, parental participation, and skin-to-skin contact when the infant is born extremely preterm.

Preterm infants are at increased risk for impaired neurodevelopmental outcomes (Stoll et al, 2010). There is evidence supporting the differences in outcomes related to how we provide care to preterm infants and the effects of the environment in which the care takes place. One of the most effective ways to reduce impaired infant outcomes is inviting parents to actively participate in care activities and provide Kangaroo Care (Boundy et al., 2016; Charpak et al., 2017). Despite international recommendations, empirical evidence, and an implementation science project focused on strengthening Kangaroo Care in neonatal intensive care units in British Columbia, Canada, implementation has been slow due to various barriers to uptake (Charpak et al., 2020; Coutts et al., 2021; WHO, 2020). A ‘one size fits all’ approach cannot guide Kangaroo Care implementation as it is a complex intervention and each NICU presents unique barriers and enablers. The uptake of Kangaroo Care relies on the involvement of parents and healthcare providers and their understanding and commitment to the evolving paradigm shift in neonatal care. This transition requires environmental and social supports, systems level change of philosophies of care, and assistance for healthcare providers to recognize their changing role.