 |
Home
>> For Parents of NICU Patients
Helping
You Better Understand the World of the NICU
Who's
Who in Caring for Your Baby
There are numerous professionals on staff in the hospital's NICU to provide care
to your baby. We work with all of them to help coordinate your child's care. It
helps to know their roles and responsibilities.
- Neonatologist:
The doctor who specializes in intensive care medicine for newborn infants.
- Neonatal
NICU Nurses: Those nurses who care for babies in the NICU.
- Respiratory Therapist: A clinician
who administers treatments that help the baby with breathing and
maintains life support equipment.
- Dietitian:
The clinician who helps coordinate the special nutrition needs of the baby.
-
Occupational, Physical Therapist: A caregivers who works with the babies and
their parents on issues concerning feeding, movement and developmental care.
- Social
Workers: The caregivers who help you get the services you need and also
lend emotional support by connecting you to other families and therapists, if
needed.
- Lactation
Consultant: A healthcare provider specially trained to help women with
breastfeeding and lactation support.
- Pharmacist:
The professional who helps manage your baby’s medications.
- Hospital
Chaplain:
A religious representative who can counsel you and try to provide comfort, for
those looking for a spiritual or religious connection.
- Case Manager: Nurses and others who
assist your insurance company in providing the full range of care
your child needs in and out of the hospital.
- Discharge
Planner: The nurse or social worker who helps plan your child's discharge
from the hospital.
Glossary: Some of the terms you may hear in the NICU
Once you are in the NICU visiting your child, you are going to be exposed to a
number of NICU-specific terms that you may hear from the neonatologist or one
of the NICU nurses. This brief glossary is only intended to provide you with an
overview of some of the terms that describe common medical conditions, procedures
and equipment discussed in the NICU for particular infants (not necessarily your
child).
- Apnea:
To stop breathing
- Bradycardia:
Slowing of the heart rate
- Continuous
Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP):
Air or oxygen delivered under a small amount of pressure.
- Car Seat
Challenge: A
test to determine a baby's oxygen levels while sitting in a car seat for a predetermined
period of time.
- Developmental
Care:
A range of strategies designed to reduce the stresses of the NICU upon the infant,
including reducing noise and light, minimal handling and longer rest periods.
- Desaturations:
When the baby's oxygen levels drop to an abnormally low range, usually associated
with feeding intolerances or respiratory problems.
- Gavage
Feeding: Feedings given through a tube inserted in the baby's mouth or
nose into the stomach
- Gestational
Age:
The length of time the pregnancy lasted, measured from the last menstrual period.
A full-term pregnancy is 40 weeks.
- Hearing
Screen:
A test that's done to monitor the baby's ability to hear, conducted prior to hospital
discharge.
- High
Risk Follow-up:
A neurodevelopmental and/or pulmonary out-patient evaluation that is performed
on babies that are felt to be at higher risk for later concerns than babies than
babies born without problems in the newborn period.
- Intra-Uterine
Growth Retardation (IUGR):
Birthweight significantly less than what would be expected at that gestational
age.
- Isolette:
Another name for an incubator... an enclosed chamber in which prematurely born
infants are kept in controlled conditions (temperature, oxygen, etc) for protection
and care.
- Intravenous:
Through a vein
- Low Birthweight:
Any baby born with weight less than five pounds.
- Nasal
Cannula:
Soft plastic tubing that goes around a baby's head and under the nose, with openings
to deliver oxygen
- Nipple
Feeding: When a baby is taking all of its feedings via a bottle.
- Respiratory
Syncitial Virus (RSV): A common respiratory infection that can lead to
serious problems in some infants, especially those who were very premature or
had major lung problems as newborns.
- Respiratory
Distress Syndrome (RDS): A serious breathing problem affecting mainly
premature babies
- Retinopathy
of Prematurity (ROP): Eye disorders that can lead to vision loss or blindness
- Surfactants:
A group of chemicals produced by the lungs which are necessary for lung function.
Inadequate surfactant production is the cause of RDS.
- Synagis:
A medication for lower respiratory tract disease caused by Respiratory Syncytial
Virus (RSP)
- Very
Low Birthweight:
Babies born with weight less than three pounds.
|
|
