Support for you and your baby

‘Family integrated care is a model that supports and educates parents and carers to become integral participants in their baby’s care from the time of admission to the NNU in partnership with the neonatal team’

Family Integrated Care (FICare) is a model of neonatal care which promotes a culture of partnership between families and staff; enabling and empowering parents to become confident, knowledgeable, and independent primary caregivers. Neonatal units with a strong FICare philosophy nurture families into this role by listening to them, building on their strengths, and encouraging their participation in experiences and decision-making to enhance control and independence. The FICare model ensures that they can be a family as soon as possible; creating space for necessary medical care whilst facilitating the nurturing bond and love that only they can provide for their baby (BAPM 2021). Evidence shows that babies looked after this way have fewer infections, are more likely to breastfeed, gain weight more quickly, have fewer complications and go home sooner.

While your baby is receiving care on a Neonatal Unit you will be able to do many of the day to day cares your baby needs. To ensure your baby’s comfort and safety you will be taught all the skills you need to give all the non-medical care to your baby. It may seem frightening and overwhelming at first but with the right support and guidance your confidence will soon grow.

Your baby will receive a baby passport that will make sure that both you and the Neonatal Unit staff know what you are able to do for your baby. This will be particularly helpful if your baby is transferred to another hospital. Please ensure the passport is kept with your baby during their Neonatal Stay.

The Northwest Neonatal ODN invests and recognises the importance of parents being the primary care giver to their baby. We support Neonatal units to deliver consistent high-quality standards through Family Integrated Care with an accreditation process. The 22 Neonatal units across the Northwest are committed to implementing and embedding FiCare. All the units are all working towards stage one accreditation. You will find the accreditation status of each the units within the unit specific information. Every Neonatal Unit is measured in line with the 4 pillars of FiCare –

Staff Education & support – Providing education and tools for staff to enable them to educate, mentor and support parents in caring for their infant in the NICU. Allowing staff to feel comfortable with the model of care and embrace their role as key facilitators of FICare. Leads to consistency in parent teaching sessions.
Parent education – Providing parents with the knowledge, skills, and confidence required to care for their infants in the NICU setting. Enabling parents to be part of the health care team by offering small group education and the opportunity to participate in medical rounds, while being supported by individual bedside learning.
NICU environment – Ensuring that unit policies and procedures are supportive of the model. Creating a physical and social environment that is conducive to the implementation of FiCare.
Psychosocial Support – Providing adequate psychosocial support for families to enable their participation in FiCare. Creating and supporting opportunities for peer-to-peer support.
The process of accreditation includes a review team made up of Parents, Medical staff, Nurses and Care Coordinators.

Parent’s presence in Neonatal Care cannot be underestimated, parents are partners in care. Staff on the unit are there to support and guide you, please do not hesitate to discuss Family Integrated Care and how you can be fully involved in your baby’s care.

Bliss – https://www.bliss.org.uk/parents/in-hospital/looking-after-your-baby-on-the-neonatal-unit/why-you-are-important-to-your-babys-care
UNICEF- https://www.unicef.org.uk/babyfriendly/support-for-parents/
Family Integrated care – Home – Family Integrated Care
Infant Mental Health – What is Infant Mental Health? – YouTube

Feeding Your Baby

The NWNODN is committed to supporting the Baby Friendly Initiative ensuring all units across the North West support all mothers with feeding and to help parents to build a close and loving relationship with their baby. For more information about the accreditation process or and the standards required please ask a member of staff or visit Accreditation – Baby Friendly Initiative (unicef.org.uk)

“One of the best things you (and only you) can do for your baby while in the neonatal unit is to provide breastmilk”

pdf (unicef.org.uk)
https://youtu.be/7yNvkk_LfpU

Breast milk is the best milk you can give to your baby and even if you don’t intend to breastfeed, expressing your milk is the best way you can really help your baby in the early days. Your breastmilk will not only provide the nutrition to help your baby grow, but it will also provide antibodies to protect them from infection while they are in hospital and for years to come. This protection is especially important for premature babies, your breastmilk is unique for your baby. The earlier you start to express, and the more often you express, the more milk you will produce for your baby’s growing needs. You will be given lots of information available to assist you to express your milk and each Neonatal Unit supports and encourages mums to express either at the baby’s cot side or in a dedicated expressing room. There are fridges and freezers onsite to store your milk and you will have breast pumps available to use on the unit and for you to loan free of charge whilst your baby is in hospital.

Whatever decision you make, you will be supported by staff on the unit and there are specialist feeding teams to support you and your baby’s feeding journey.

Hand expressing https://youtu.be/K0zVCwdJZw0
Positioning and attachment Positioning and attachment video – Baby Friendly Initiativ (unicef.org.uk)

Donor Milk

If your baby is premature or sick and ready to start feeding you may be advised that donor milk would be best for your baby until your own breast milk is available. “Donor human milk has been cited as reducing necrotising enterocolotis and other morbidities such as bronchopulmonary dysplasia, late-onset sepsis and retinopathy of prematurity in small, sick and/or preterm infants, especially the very low-birth-weight and extremely low birth weight infants.” Protecting, promoting and supporting breastfeeding: the baby-friendly hospital initiative for small, sick and preterm newborns (World Health Organisation & UNICEF) August 2020

The nurse looking after your baby will discuss this with you and provide a leaflet answering questions you may have. For information on donor expressed breast milk, please visit the Cheshire and North Wales Human Milk Bank website by clicking here https://www.milkbankatchester.org.uk/

When your baby is on a neonatal unit it can be both physically and emotionally demanding and you might find that this experience had an impact on your emotional well-being. We know that having a baby on the Neonatal unit can impact any parent – no matter whether your baby was born at term or prematurely, and no matter how long your journey has been through the Neonatal unit. Whatever you’re experiencing, you’re not alone and support is available.

Staff are here to support you and some units have counsellors, Clinical Psychologists, Wellbeing Practitioners who are part of the Neonatal team. They are available to talk to while on the unit and in some cases post discharge. Information on supporting wellbeing and mental health can be found on information boards on the units or please ask a member of the team. Further information on mental health and wellbeing can be found at Information about parents’ mental health | Bliss

In some units you will have the opportunity to meet peer supporters who attend the unit during the week, they have lived experiences within neonatal care and can offer invaluable support. There are parent support groups in the form of closed facebook groups/twitter/instagram pages which can offer support and advice.

Please ask a member of the team for more information and follow the links below.

• Home | Lancashire Women
• Spoons Charity – Neonatal Family Support
• Microsoft Word – Wire Warriors.docx (neonatalnetwork.co.uk)
• Microsoft Word – Dinky Devas.docx (neonatalnetwork.co.uk)
• Believe-in-Miracles.pptx (live.com)

Introducing the Neonatal Families & Staff Together Project (NFaST)

The NWNODN and Spoons Charity have partnered an exciting project to create emotionally healthy neonatal units. The Neonatal Families and Staff Together (NFaST) project trialled interventions designed to enable neonatal units to become more psychologically responsive and emotionally supportive environments. Through a mixture of psychological input and peer support the project explored what really works for families and staff, as well as identifying and capturing existing examples of best practice and making recommendations for future service design. Their evaluation report can be found here.

As a result of the progress made through this project, further work has been commissioned. This second stage, delivered by Spoons Charity, will continue the provision of peer support with the objective of embedding neonatal peer support via lived experience into units within the North West where there are currently gaps. Peer support will be delivered by volunteers who have experienced neonatal care in the locality and will take the approach of:

• Developing relationships with hospitals, NHS and voluntary sector partners
• Recruiting and training volunteer peer supporters; and
• Establishing a common delivery framework for parent support in the neonatal context

Links

• Home page – PANDAS Foundation UK
• Home – Mind
• YoungMinds | Mental Health Charity For Children And Young People | YoungMinds
• Dads Matter Home page (dadsmatteruk.org)
• Twins Trust – We support twins, triplets and more…
• Sands | Stillbirth and neonatal death charity
• Child Bereavement UK

Charities

https://www.thesmallestthings.org/
Home – Leo’s Neonatal – Leo’s Neonatal (leosneonatal.org)
https://actions.tommys.org/

Useful Apps

Calm – The #1 App for Meditation and Sleep
Catch it | Health Well (eani.org.uk)
Home – ThinkUp AppThinkUp App | Positive Affirmations App
Mental health and new dads | Ask DadPad | Support for new dads (thedadpad.co.uk)