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Top 5 Tips For NICU Dads
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What about dads? Life after the NICU
A few months back I was asked by Bryana Salazar to be a part of a study she was doing. I jumped at the chance when I found out the study was exploring the needs of NICU fathers and their experiences after discharge. 32 NICU fathers participated in this study to help us learn more about the NICU experience and the transition home. Please take a look at her study here: https://spark.adobe.com/page/wR523tLe542qn/#theme-5 Here is what she found. Theme 1: Dads and Healthcare Providers Interacting with healthcare providers while your child is in the NICU and beyond can be intimidating. Theme 2: Adjusting Expectations For some fathers, the transition is difficult…
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How to Survive the First 72 Hours of NICU…as a NICU Dad
A while back I was asked to host a NICU Dads Group at our local Children’s Hospital’s NICU. I thought it was a great idea and immediately jumped online to start researching some topics or just get some information that I could share with some fellow NICU Dads. I looked and looked, and found nothing. Well, maybe nothing is a slight exaggeration. All I found was an article here and there in sites that were for NICU moms. There was nothing out there for NICU Dads. Then I came across Rad White and The NICU Beard Club. Rad had also written a book for NICU Dads, Enter The NICU. I was…
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Ronald McDonald House Charities
On June 10, 2013 my wife and I both went to work on what seemed like a normal Monday morning. She was 27 weeks pregnant. It was the first day of summer vacation for our oldest daughter, who had just turned 9 the week before. Everything was fine, until my wife called around 9 a.m., hysterical. Her water broke, and an ambulance was on its way to take her to the hospital. I was almost 45 minutes away, but made it to the hospital in about 15 minutes. Our world was turned upside down. We were informed that the baby was breach and we would have to have an…
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Going back to work after the NICU
I recently came across a post on social media, where a mother shared her plan about returning to work after coming home from the NICU and asked for advice on what other NICU parents did. The thread that followed completely blew my mind! I couldn’t believe how many parents responded and how similar their stories were to ours. Having a baby in the NICU is life changing, and more often, bringing a baby home from the NICU is also life changing. Some parents bring home babies from the NICU who still require a lot of care. They have to make some serious decisions about who is going to care for…
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What about NICU Grandparents?
I never really gave it much thought, and it makes me feel horrible to say, but I never really took into consideration what our parents went through when we were in the NICU.
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10 things I wish I would have known as a new NICU Dad…
I knew people who had children in NICUs, but I never really understood what that really meant. I knew that babies that needed surgery or babies who were not doing too well, were in NICUs. What I never really thought about was the NICU experience, especially for a NICU dad. Now having gone through our own 67 day NICU stay, there are several things I wish I had known about being a NICU dad. I can only speak from my experience, but I’m sure I’m not alone. There are some things that I wish I had known or at least been able to prepare for as a NICU dad. I…
