Parents of the smallest babies in P.E.I. intensive care unit getting more involved early on

Katie Bice sits in the hospital bed with her seven-day-old daughter Janelle nestled in her arms, a feeding tube taped to her tiny rosy cheek and leading to her nose.

Janelle was born six weeks prematurely and weighed three pounds, 11 ounces. She can’t yet feed on her own. 

“She’ll get there,” Bice said in an interview Wednesday. “She’s still supposed to be in my belly.”

One reason Bice feels reassured is because of a new program launched recently at the neonatal intensive care unit at Charlottetown’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital. It’s called Merge, and it’s aimed at involving parents more in their pre-term babies’ care while they’re still in hospital. 

For newborns, having their parents involved in their care early on strengthens the parental bond, supports healthy brain development and stabilizes their overall health, according to Health P.E.I.

Under the new program, families learn to change their preemie babies’ diapers, take their temperature, and feed them. They participate in bedside rounds with their babies’ health-care team and document each day’s progress in a journal. Families are encouraged to ask questions.

“They want you to start doing everything for the baby,” Bice said. “Like, at first it was different. She was so small compared to my other daughter when she was born — and even changing her bum was weird — but, like, now it’s OK.”

Merge is considered a new standard of care in neonatal intensive care units across the country, Health P.E.I. said. It started in western Canada in 2015.

The QEH is the first hospital in the Maritimes with the program.

Staff were trained on delivering it for about a year and officially implemented it last month. Families who have gone through the program can choose to come back as peer mentors.

Julie Fitzpatrick-Hopkin, a clinical social worker at QEH’s NICU, said the program is already making a difference on P.E.I.

The babies can come in and they appear sick, but we’re able to really engage the parents in the beginning.— Julie Fitzpatrick-Hopkin

“A lot of families who come in and have early babies, they are very unfamiliar with the size… ‘Can I touch them?’ Can they be with them? What’s their role? 

“The babies can come in and they appear sick, but we’re able to really engage the parents in the beginning.”

Fitzpatrick-Hopkin said the NICU team has always engaged with parents, but the new program highlights the importance of helping them manage the anxiety that comes with having a child in intensive care. 

“Every birth is different, every baby is different. So we allow the babies to let us know what they need. We listen to their cues.

“We help parents understand whether a baby needs to be held tighter, whether the baby needs to be fed. We’re teaching them how they can best care for their babies.”

The best way they can do that is to become “partners in care,” she said.

“Transferring the baby in and out of their particular isolette can be a little bit complicated, but parents are well versed to be able to do it with some coaching. Holding their babies, putting their babies skin to skin — we’re able to do that almost immediately in every case.”

Little Janelle is expected to remain in hospital until what would have been her full-term due date in five weeks.

Bice said the Merge program has made her more comfortable leaving her baby overnight while she goes home to Summerside, where she has another daughter.

“Right now it’s a little easier and I feel at peace leaving her here at nighttime. I can’t feed her yet and the nurses are amazing.”