Louise Margaret Tomas
SCR 270.4111
Prof. Anne-Marie Emmanuel
Location- Jamaica Hospital
Clinical Date: 11/25/2008
My NICU experience
In the NICU newborn infants are kept under constant supervison and are provided with all special needs. NICUs provide better temperature support, isolation from infection risk, specialized feeding, and access to specialized equipment and resources. The infants are cared for in incubators or open warmers and babies are attached to monitors that provide constant reporting of their status. Some babies require respiratory support that rangs from extra oxygen by head hood or nasal cannula to continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) or mechanical ventilation. Many of the unit occupants are prematur and/or have extremely low birth weight. Other babies are in the unit because they suffered form perinatal asphyxia, major birth defects, sepsis, neonatal jaundice, and respiratory distress syndrome due to immaturity of the lungs.
I can’t say that I enjoyed my stay in the NICU. Out of all my rotation this one was so far the most painfull one. I walked into the NICU knowing that I will not like it but nothing prepared me to the sight and feelings that I had when I entered one of the rooms. All the babies were on the ventilators and inside the incubators. Each baby looked so small and fragile. I held my composure until mother of 2 weeeks old baby came in and started talking to her daughter. I started crying and left the room. I thought that she must have had a hard time seeing her child hooked up on the ventilator.
In talking to one of the NICU nurses; Ms. Marie; she mentioned to me that at first they didn’t like working there also; but she reminded herself that she is helping the babies that need her. She also mentions that she remembers the babies that DID get better and make it through the NICU and were able to lead ‘healthy lives’. She also gave me a diaper as a “souvenir” of my NICU rotation, which I thought was a sweet thing to do.