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.

Would you prefer they pay a professional with a medical qualification £££ to cuddle babies instead of undertaking clinical duties? 🙄

Some babies have older siblings with no one to look after them and Mum can only be there for short periods and may live far away.
I met some of the baby cuddlers when I was in college we did a day in the NICU. I always said I'd love that job after doing it for the afternoon back then.
Edited to add we did foster care for about 10 years and seeing I was a nurse I used to be sent the little babies to care for. Many were born with drugs in their system, so I had that inconsolable baby to cuddle often, with each one you find a way to console them and calm them with practise, feeding was slow and challenging with trouble sucking. But that was the most satisfying thing I've really ever done that wasn't to do with my own family. I loved the 2am feeds, just me and the baby all quiet in the house, or 4am watching the sun come up in a rocking chair and cuddling.

One of them was an acquaintance. She had husband employed in same place as mine, both given same generous paternity leave and one older child the same age as mine. We lived in the same estate. Similar income and access to hospital transport by private car.

They did an hour a day.

I think it is great. With the birth of my 3rd child, I was in HDU whilst my little one (premature) was rushed to SCUBU. Thankfully my DH knew to leave me and go with the baby after we sadly lost a baby born early in hospital and grandparents had the children at home.

Had we not had family, to know someone was with our little girl would have been a blessing nd relief.

I've been one of these volunteers. You had to be a mother to qualify. I focused on babies whose mothers were in prison. They have so many alarms connected to them and the nurses were always walking around.

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.

Thats about you as an adult with learnt behaviour though. Your baby would have thrived on the contact because it's just a little human. It would still have known you were its mum.

I will always be grateful to all who stepped in and held my newborns. I nearly died with the first who was preterm and too ill to care I had a baby
let alone cuddle him. Third was a very scary delivery again too ill to look after home and he never slept. The only time he stopped screaming was when he was held. Fourth….lets just say I had three others and she was so tiny and frail I was scared to handle her. Knowing someone would do kangaroo care for her so I could go home for a bit to see the others helped. Her grandparents where trying to juggle the others at home for me. I would not have trusted friends to do that only screened and trained hospital volunteers who could work alongside the skilled nurses.
And yes I saw babies in NNICU who had been born addicted, poor little mites needed all the extra TLC they could get from screened volunteers.

It's not for your benefit though, it's for the benefit of the baby.

Sorry but this sounds really judgemental and like you think you're a better parent just because you basically spent 24/7 there.

We had twins born at 26 weeks who spent 3 months in the hospital. We did not spend all day every day sitting next to their incubators/ cots and never spent overnight there. None of the parents did. This was fully supported and even encouraged by the nurses and counsellor on the ward. They actively encouraged us to take breaks, a few hours during the day, going home early evening and not coming back until the next day, even a whole day off here and there after the first couple of months when the babies were very stable. It was pointed out to us that exhausting ourselves physically and mentally would probably end up just causing us to be so worn out by the time they finally came home that it would just be making life far more difficult than it had to be. It didn't mean we loved or cared about our children any less.

As for the job advert in question, I personally wouldn't have wanted a stranger holding my babies. In our hospital only parents were allowed to hold them so no other family or visitors were allowed to hold or even touch them. But I would have welcomed someone to talk to or to help in other ways.

With two small children who have been in and out of hospital including several stays in HDU, I find this an invaluable service. It’s so hard when you’re on your own and you just want a bit of a breather from the room but you don’t want to leave your sick child. Having someone sit with him and cuddle him is very much needed as the nurses are too busy to do it themselves.

I'm shocked at the number of posters who wouldn't want their baby to benefit from this. If I had a prem baby, I'd want them cuddled, skin to skin, 24 hours a day in a low light space as that's what would be best for them both physically and psychologically. Regardless of how I felt, my baby would come first and if this improved their outcome (as all the evidence suggests it does) I would be all for it and very grateful to the volunteers.

I'd presume it's BC the mum isn't physically well enough or not present for whatever reason. It's presumably fully with parental consent.
It could be a role that trainee early years workers, experienced mums, or those who lost a baby to seek comfort while helping another family?

Poor baby.
Have you read the old thread {Now in 'Classics' by a wonderful foster mother on here called ''EarthMotherImNot'' ?

It's heartbreaking and lovely at the same time.

EMIN takes on a withdrawing baby she calls ''Ladybird'' and sees her through her horrendous withdrawals.

Ladybird would be about 15 yrs old now.

Tragically lovely EMIN passed away.{Illness}

www.mumsnet.com/talk/mumsnet_classics/922821-drug-dependant-baby-advice-needed

I’ve just looked online to see if there is any volunteer opportunities near me as I currently can’t work but that would be absolutely lovely. I’d happily go and do that if it gave the parents some comfort to know that their baby was having human contact. It would be nice to get to meet the parents too. How adorable

It's known as kangaroo care OP and there are studies that show it helps better outcomes for neonatal babies.

It might seem odd to you but when you have a baby in neonatal care with 2 nurses to 10 babies as the room is over capacity due to demand, a volunteer is amazing and goes through the same checks plus hygiene routine that others do.
It's absolutely heart wrenching leaving your newborn in neonatal, the nurses had to send me to eat.
Maybe educate yourself a bit into why it's a volunteer role because of the benefits babies get.

When my baby was in NICU me and my husband were able to be with him (thank you sick childrens trust) but there was one baby there they had an pad pointing at them with songs and cartoons. It was only one baby and we surmised it must be a parental request. Anyway, sometimes these babies are miles and miles away from their family, if you were a poor ill baby I’m sure you’d rather have a cuddle with a gentle Nan type person than be left with an iPad. Tbf to the op they may not get it, having a child in NICU is horrendous, it was the most darkest time in my life. It changes you and your perspective a lot. Before it happened to me I would probably have agreed.

I've not read it, too heartbreaking, but I have heard the story, and knew she had passed. What an invaluable service she gave.

This service is for babies that need contact. Can't believe you'd deprive a baby of that

Thankyou you’ve really put that so well it’s so hard to explain I wasn’t coming across well in my posts but it’s just so hard to get across how it can feel

I agree with all of that. Sometimes all it needs is that human touch, especially if they are in an incubator and can't be moved, the person can just touch or stroke them. It can't always be mum or dad there 24/7. Mum has to sleep sometimes, and dad might be at home with other dc.

Our local animal shelter has kitten cuddlers.

As I said it is clearly beneficial for a lot of babies I just wouldn’t feel comfortable and would opt out if I was in that situation

I had to be resuscitated at birth - my mother described it as 'you came out, the doctor picked you up and they all ran out of the room'.

Nine days later (after she'd been treated for the post partum haemorrhage that started shortly after the room was vacated by everybody) somebody asked her if she'd like to see me. She was then returned to her hospital bed for another couple of weeks. I've seen a letter where my father called in a favour in between theatre slots so that he could sneak in to see me once a week as staff and wrote a letter to her to describe what I looked like, as he wasn't allowed to see her, either. My 17 year old sister was looking after my siblings, the house and the pets for the entire time until our mother was discharged and at some point after that, my mother was called to say I could be collected.

Possibly a coincidence, but my mother has also said that even though I rarely slept more than about three hours at a time, I never, ever cried and would just lay in my cot, looking at the ceiling and playing with a blanket. I think that could mean that nobody cuddled me more than a couple of times for a few minutes for weeks.

Nothing new about this🤷‍♀️

Absolutely so- The Volunteers will be vetted and trained, and enhanced DBS checked.
They will be alongside hospital staff and supervised.
Not some randoms who stroll in off the street to 'cuddle a baby'.

Possibly it will be very distressed newborns who are withdrawing who will get this Volunteer comfort- and why shouldn't they.

These days, it's not uncommon for a baby to be born really prem, to initially struggle, but quite quickly stabilise in terms of critical things. These babies are still tiny so often need an incubator for extra heat and maybe need IV food, but otherwise they basically need to grow. They are fragile, but they aren't poorly like about to die. They may simple need a warm place to rest and grow, and IV nutrition because their suck is weak or not yet developed. This means weeks, maybe months, in ICU. If the parents live in a rural area, the nearest hospital with a neo-natal ICU may be quite far away, and the parents may have other children. The reality for a lot of families is that maybe dad works 8-6 or longer 5 days a week and mum doing school runs for say a 6 year old and at home with a pre-schooler during the day. Dad has his paternity 2 weeks and then mum was expecting to take over with most weekday kids stuff again, school runs and the preschooler including the baby. She can't suddenly leave the 6 and 3 year old alone and she can't go to the baby between school runs, with the 3 year old on public transport everyday, so this is the next best thing.