Hands-On Care

Expectant parents look forward to the day they can hold their baby in their arms. Part of the joy of being a new parent is snuggling with a new little sweetheart. I have heard new moms and dads say they can't get enough of their little one. They just want to caress every inch of their skin, and rubbing noses with an infant as she stretches her tiny arms and gives an even tinier yawn makes for a precious picture to share with others and cherish for years to come. For the parent of a preemie, however, this is not the picture of parenthood.

Moms and dads of preemies don't get to hold their babies like the parents of full-term babies do. Much of what goes on with a baby in the NICU is hands-off, meaning that the majority of the time a baby is left alone. To the parent of a full-term baby, it might sound cruel to leave the baby untouched in his or her bed. Yet, as one of our nurses explained to us, preemies don't like to be touched. They are not supposed to be snuggled for another few weeks or even months. For this reason, parents in the NICU must care for their babies within a scheduled system known as hands-on care.

Every three hours, a nurse would come to check Buzzy's temperature, change her diaper, and hook her up to her next feeding. If her father or I were present, we were allowed and even encouraged to do the first two tasks. If medication or an IV change was needed, the nurse would do this during a scheduled hands-on, and after this round of activity, Buzzy was given time to rest. If we wanted to touch our baby in between hands-on times, we could certainly do so, but we were told not to stroke her skin as we might do with a newborn. Instead, we cupped our hands around her tiny frame. As hard as it was for a first-time father not to hold his baby's hand and run his finger down the length of her body, this is what Buzzy's proud papa quickly learned not to do.

As Buzzy got closer to her due date, we could treat her a little more like a newborn, but for the 10 weeks that she remained in the hospital, we primarily operated within this simulation of what parenting should be. In looking back, I believe that it affected all of us in different ways. While I became afraid to touch our fragile child, her father took advantage of every opportunity he could. At times, it even felt like he was stealing all of her attention. I don't blame him, though. Having waited until he was 40 to have a child, he really could not get enough of her. The NICU seems to have had an effect on Buzzy's socialization as well. After being released from the hospital, she would cry when someone other than her father or I would hold her. Now, she only wants her father, who continues to dote on her.

Being a hands-on parent is certainly more challenging when a child is born prematurely, and if there is an adjustment period needed in caring for a full-term baby, that same period is made much more difficult when the baby remains in a sterile environment for so long. We can now snuggle our child as much as we want, but in the beginning, we had to reconcile ourselves with the fact that our child did not need our loving touch.