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NICU nurses never say home
The word nobody says
Nurses believe that when babies hear the word home, they get sick. They know it is a superstition. Still, something happens, and sometimes it can be devastating.
The car seat hint
After about four and a half months in the NICU, a nurse practitioner told Kelly Benham and Tom French that they might think about buying a car seat. It was the first sign Juniper might leave. For people who wanted a baby so badly while everyone else seemed to have one, shopping for car seats had become a fantasy.
Going out the door
When the day came, the doctor gave the all clear and the monitors came off. Juniper was free and untethered, hooked to nothing. They strapped her into the car seat and put a little pair of sunglasses on her, because she had never seen the sun and they did not know whether her eyes would be okay in it. Her primary nurse is not a hugger, but they grabbed her anyway and cried all over her shirt. Then they put the baby in the car and went to Chick-fil-A. Juniper had been in the hospital for 196 days, six and a half months.
Why do high-stakes jobs breed superstition?
The anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski observed in the 1910s and 1920s that Trobriand Islanders used magic rituals for dangerous open-sea fishing but not for safe lagoon fishing. His finding suggested superstition grows where risk and uncertainty are high and outcomes are out of a person's hands. B. F. Skinner reported in 1948 that pigeons fed on a timer, regardless of what they did, developed their own repeated rituals.
What signs let a preemie leave the NICU?
Hospitals look for milestones rather than a fixed date. The American Academy of Pediatrics lists them as steady weight gain on feeding by mouth, a stable body temperature in an open crib, and no recent pauses in breathing. Many babies born extremely early reach these around their original due date, though some stay far longer.
How do hospitals test car seat safety for preemies?
Premature babies can have breathing pauses or drops in oxygen when they sit in a semi-upright position. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that babies born before 37 weeks be watched in their car seat before discharge. The observation lasts 90 to 120 minutes or the length of the ride home, whichever is longer, while monitors record breathing, heart rate, and oxygen.
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