Job advert for volunteer to cuddle babies in NICU

[columbosscruffycoat]

My local health authority has just advertised for volunteers to go and work in the nicu cuddling babies. It’s not a joke, it’s a genuine advert. I can’t imagine any parent would want some random person cuddling their poorly baby. I can’t believe the nhs has come to this. Just wondered what people think about this and whether it’s happening anywhere else in the uk. I’m in the northwest uk.

I would have absolutely hated that when my ds was in NICU. The thought of anyone other than me or dh cuddling him would have upset me . I would have declined / opted out.

I only heard about this "service" quite recently & I think it's fantastic, my niece was born really prematurely years ago & my sister was torn between being at home with my nephews who were still quite young & I know if this had been an option back then it would have been an enormous weight off her mind & reduced her stres levels

When I get older, retired, I'd love to volunteer to be part of this initiative

I never really thought about it as I stayed home with my children but I get your point. And as I've said a few times I guess I jumped the gun with my first response. I replied on my first reaction but then read through the comments and realised I was wrong.

What if you had been in a coma and didn't have a DH? The service is for babies who need it.

Would you have genuinely preferred for him to be alone, when he is designed to need physical touch in the same way he needed warmth and food?

My baby was in neonatal for 8 weeks. There were signs everywhere saying only mother and father could hold babies due to infection risks. I wouldn’t have been happy to find a volunteer holding my 2lb baby and potentially infecting her.

The service is great for those babies that need it but it wasnt for my situation.

Oh absolutely 💯 there were very clearly parents who had to get home. None I met that had their own medical needs but of course this happens. Having spent a long time there you do get to chat and understand people's situations. There were at least 5 families I met that had a bed in the mums bay next door if they wanted but chose to go home every single night, not just for the occasional night. And they'd leave at like 4 or 5 so not even putting there babies down for the night. They'd stroll in mid morning then go for lunch hour and chill in the cafe. I was equally jealous and in awe, having a velcro baby that wanted to be held all day and night, being in pain from open heart surgery, this really did soothe him. But I'd sit next to their babies crying in the night, not always being dealt with when the nurses were busy and just think "you really could be here, taking care of your baby so the nurses can do their job". One nurse did say that it's common they get relied on like nannies not nurses.

@comewhinewith my dc were born premature & I was in a position to visit. However, there were many babies in NICU who didn't have anyone. These volunteers are a lifeline for these babies, the volunteers didn't hold mine because I was there. But there were some parents who weren't allowed contact for very good safeguarding reasons. It's for their babies that these volunteers are needed.

I’m a midwife and you’d be surprised how many babies in NICU don’t have parents coming regularly to visit them.

• Babies who are going to foster carers
• Babies who are in different hospitals to the mum due to them being transfered and mum not yet fit to travel
• Babies who have mums looking after other children at home
• Babies who have been transfered far away from their non driving parent due to cot availability

Evidence shows that holding and rocking babies helps with neurological development. Hence many incubators have a rock function now but human contact is far better and sadly NICU nurses simply don’t have the time.

I’m genuinely shocked that people would rather their baby was alone, especially as NICU and special care parents know that physical touch is a vital need for a baby and improves their outcome.

I'm so shocked by the posters who genuinely would have preferred their child to be alone crying in an incubator with no one allowed to comfort them than having a vetted, trained volunteer do the right thing and hold them. Surely it should be about what's in the best interest of the child rather than a possessiveness that the parent has? Hopefully in these instances the common sense of the medics would prevail.

I think it's unfortunate that you seem to be reacting to this thing you've heard of and don't understand with judgement instead of curiosity.

Physical touch is incredibly important for NICU babies; the health benefits for them are well documented. Knowing that their child is being held and cared for as much as possible instead of laying alone on in a plastic box is also reassuring for parents during what is usually a traumatizing time.

Of course most parents of NICU babies spend as much time there as they can, but the parents are often dealing with maternal medical issues as well, or juggling care for other children, or need to work, or don't have affordable housing and transportation close enough to the hospital to visit multiple times per day. Babies may need to be in the NICU for weeks and months at a stretch, not just a few days where life can be put on hold to sit with them. And a not insignificant number of premature, medically fragile babies have parents who are dealing with substance abuse or mental health issues or are already in care.

These volunteers are vital, and they're of course well vetted and closely supervised.

It's horrible. It's actually made me feel quite emotional.
It just doesn't make sense.

I had preemie twins in SCBU (so not NICU, but we couldn't take them home). I was there as much as I could be, but I had an older child at home who needed me and they couldn't give me a bad so I did the midnight feed and then came back for the 6am feed. I'm told they were very unsettled during the nights and the nurse's found it upsetting. I was enormously grateful to a student nurse who it seems stayed beyond her shift to cuddle him.

Nicu is busy, these people wouldn't be alone with the babies.

as it happened we weren’t allowed to even touch him for 7 days. He wasn’t allowed to be held at all or touched unless it was for a medical reason or nappy change due to his breathing problems so he had to go without t human touch. I think though if the choice had been there I’d still not have been happy as I wanted to hold him

I would have loved this for my very prem baby. As it was I was there in SCBU from 6am to 12am daily, every day for 7 weeks. Leaving him there alone nearly broke me every time, I might have felt able to take some time to recover for myself had I known that someone else would step in to cuddle him. As I was there for so many hours I would frequently hear the other babies who didn't have anyone there for them crying and crying without the staff always noticing. It absolutely destroyed me every time and made me extremely reluctant to leave my baby at all.

Touch and kangaroo care is so important for babies wellbeing and they need to be nurtured that way to be able to develop properly.

It's not just about parents not able to be there... sadly there are a hell of a lot of parents who choose not to. One of my children spent 2 months in NICU and there were parents who would visit once a week and some less frequently 😔 a baby cuddler is a great idea subject to the right checks etc. it also allows nurses to concentrate on medical care instead.

It's lovely that you were able to be there, and it must have been so upsetting to hear that baby in such distress. But please don't judge parents who have to "disappear" from SCBU for a few hours. There are countless reasons why they might need to do this. Countless reasons.

To give a very simple example, I was in SCBU 24/7 for two weeks with my first premature baby. With my second, who was in SCBU for four weeks, I had a toddler at home. So I'd "disappear" from SCBU mid afternoon to help give my toddler some semblance of a normal evening dinner and bedtime before heading back to SCBU in the evening for a bit. Then back home, couple hours sleep, up to pump, couple more hours sleep, then breakfast with toddler, then back into SCBU. I was lucky to have had a quick recovery from the birth to be able to do this. And lucky in many other ways.

Back to the point of the thread, I think this job sounds like a lovely idea.

The hospital weren't fulfilling their duty of care to you if you were on the NICU 21 hours a day for months on end. But go ahead, just all of us shit mothers who were so lax and lazy with our 6 hours of sleep.

These volunteers would be treated like staff, not just randoms off the street. They would be subject to the same controls as nurses.

The human contact, especially skin to skin touch to help a premature baby regulate could be the difference between life and death. The example of cot sharing given by a PP is so on point for this.

There were volunteers when I had my baby in 2018 they helped me hold him whilst I went to toilet or I was being seen to - was very grateful for their help post c-section.

Did you think about your question before you posted?

I just can’t imagine being happy to say no to something that would benefit my child and potentially increase her chances of a good outcome, both physically and psychologically.

I would love to do something like this. When my youngest has grown and left I will be home alone. To know I could provide comfort to a baby (and in turn the parents) would mean a lot to me.

I literally know someone who does this as a job in the US. She’s a very well off eccentric aunt type figure. If it helps she has literally cuddled my child to sleep at an event. She’s good at it 😂.