Each year, nearly 400 premature and sick newborns are cared for in Eastern Maine Medical Center’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Part of EMMC’s modernization project includes a new home for our Level 3 NICU where the smallest and sickest babies born in eastern, northern and central Maine will be cared for in the first weeks and months of their lives.
As the only Level 3 NICU north of Portland, we know thousands of families are looking to EMMC to ensure their newborns have a progressive space for newborn intensive care supported by a talented team should they need it. While EMMC’s care team is arguably second to none, our current NICU, which opened in 1982, allows us to care for three to four babies in a single room with limited space for parents at the bedside.
We know now that single-family rooms offer important advantages in a NICU setting. Our new NICU will have 29 private, single-family rooms that have enough space to allow parents to be at the bedside helping care for their babies as much as possible. In fact, each new private NICU room will be the same size as our rooms that currently accommodate three to four babies and their families.
This new personal care space helps us address several concerns that are common when caring for babies in the NICU. First, the unexpected situation of having a sick or pre-term baby creates feelings of intense vulnerability for parents — feelings that need to be respected. Conversations about care for their baby need to be private. Our new NICU gives families the privacy to come together and have these conversations.
Second, caring for a sick newborn is complex, and the noise and busyness of treating several babies in one room creates a crowded feeling and increases noise and stress for babies, families and caregivers. We know a quiet and restful setting creates the best environment for healing, and this is why the private rooms are such an important part of our new space.
Lastly, when parents have the opportunity to stay with their babies and participate more fully in their care, the parents can become true partners in care. Inviting the parent into the care arena for their baby can have a lasting effect and may produce better outcomes, such as faster weight gain, an increased opportunity to breastfeed in private, and even a shorter hospital stay.
Although in our current NICU we have some single-patient rooms for babies and families getting ready to go home, these don’t offer as much opportunity for parents to be able to help care for their baby. We know that parents need to have the same chance to be with their baby during the critical time when he or she is sick as when they are getting ready to go home.
Since a room with multiple bassinets and families does not provide the most desirable environment for a sick newborn to improve, we look forward to spring 2016 when the first phase of our modernization project is complete. Any parent who has had to endure the heartache of having a sick newborn knows what peace of mind comes from not having to leave their baby’s side.
It takes an entire community to make improvements like the new NICU a reality for Maine’s newborns and their families.
Mark S. Brown, M.D., medical director of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and chief of pediatrics at Eastern Maine Medical Center, has a longtime interest in research and commitment to improving the quality of care for infants.