NICU

There are many people who have never been in a NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) and I have been in one many times. I will attempt to explain what it is like.

Before you can even get into the room where the babies are, there is a sink. Everyone, before going into the next room, must scrub for three minutes. It is just like you see on TV when the doctor gets ready for surgery—you must scrub your hands and arms all the way to the elbows for a period of three minutes. This has changed from nine years ago—at that time we had to scrub for five minutes and had to remove all rings and jewelry on the wrists and arms. Now you are allowed to keep rings on. Once you have scrubbed, you must put a gown over your street clothes and then you can go into the room where the babies are.

The first thing you notice when you walk into the room is how dark it is. I’m not talking dark as night, just very subdued lighting. And this is understandable—all of the babies SHOULD still be in a very dark place, their mother’s womb! The next thing you notice are all of the machines. Every isolette has its own station with machines and monitors—everything needed to keep a premature infant alive and well. If the station is occupied, you notice the lights and the tracings on the monitors—these are to track heart rates, breathing, oxygen, etc. As you get closer to a baby, you notice how everything being used is in miniature form. All of the leads, tubes, needles, and other medical supplies are tiny to the point of being laughable. But then, you see how tiny the babies are and you know why everything is so small. It is not unusual to see a baby so tiny that a man’s wedding ring will fit on its upper arm—with room to spare!

The isolettes are clear plastic “boxes” with portholes on the sides. The top can be raised so the baby can be cared for and the portholes can be used to do minor procedures. These isolettes are on raised stands so that the baby is at a comfortable height for the nurses to care for her. If the baby doesn’t need to be under the ultraviolet light, you will often see the top of the isolette covered with a quilt so the baby won’t be disturbed.

Depending on the size of the baby, she could just be wearing a diaper (if she’s big enough to fit into a preemie size), or she will be lying there naked. Sometimes the baby will be wrapped in a blanket, but it is easier for them to do procedures if the baby is unclothed—if it is a matter of saving a life, the quicker you can get to the baby, the better. Often, the baby will be wearing a knit ski-cap. Once you are over your amazement at how small she is (which you never REALLY are), you see all of the wires and tubes. There is a feeding tube, either in the nose or the mouth, you can have an IV, there are leads on the chest for heart monitoring, etc., the foot has a lead to measure oxygen levels, and she could have an oxygen tube. Plus there could be various other things attached depending on how sick the baby is. Some babies look very sick—you really wonder if they will make it—and some just look like miniature versions of full-term babes. You really don’t want to see the sick-looking ones—they’ll break your heart.

It is very hard to spend a lot of time in the NICU. There really isn’t much to do other than sit and watch your baby. If the baby is well enough, it can be held for periods of time, but that is limited. It is unnerving to sit and watch the warning lights and hear all of the warning signals coming from your baby as well as all of the others. However, the more time you spend there the more you begin to recognize what is a very serious emergency and what isn’t. Sometimes a baby will move the wrong way and a lead will detach and that will start an alarm—those are welcome problems. Of course, there are times when an alarm will go off for a very serious reason and those are the times you, selfishly, pray it isn’t your baby setting off the alarm. Day after day you just sit and wait—wait for the baby to begin feeding normally, wait for the oxygen tube to go, wait for the IV to go, wait for the doctor to come and talk to you, wait for the baby to gain another ounce, wait, and wait, and wait. And secretly you are ashamed when you are relieved to see your baby is so much healthier than the rest in the NICU. And you wait and you pray for the day she will be able to go home with you.

For the most part, a stay in the NICU is for a long length of time. Most babies will be there for WEEKS, not days. It is truly amazing the way they are able to take care of the very littlest of the little ones and how very often they are perfectly healthy when they are discharged. I have seen two of my grandchildren make it through the NICU—with the third one there now—and I ask God to bless the nurses and doctors, and I thank Him, daily, for all they do. They are truly gifted and wonderful people. They are heroes. And I hope and I pray this is the last time I will have to watch a baby in the NICU.