Enter The NICU: When Men Enter The NICU And Quarterback the Game of Their Lives

Radford White

Enter The NICU

When Men Enter The NICU And Quarterback the Game of Their Lives

First published by The NICU Beard Club in 2017

Copyright © Radford White, 2017

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

First Edition

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Contents

How to Use this Book

Stay in Touch with Other NICU Friends

Special Thanks

Preface

I. The Immediate Need

How to Survive the First 72 Hours of NICU

What to Expect from Your Unexpected Delivery: A NICU Consultant Tells All

II. When NICU Dads Talk

Rodney Wilson

Paul Buxton

Dan Young

Mark Mills

Nic Mackay

David Brereton

Matt Abbott

Alan Sweeney

Lawrence Groves

Radford White

The Media Release that Changed Everything

Our Funding Supporters

How to Use this Book

JUST HAD A CHILD (OR MULTIPLE) ADMITTED TO NICU?

GO TO --> "THE IMMEDIATE NEED"

IF YOU NEED IMMEDIATE SUPPORT & HAVE JUST ENTERED THE NICU WITH A CHILD BORN PREMATURELY, GO STRAIGHT TO "THE IMMEDIATE NEED".

BEEN IN NICU FOR AT LEAST A WEEK?

FEEL FREE TO READ THE ENTIRE BOOK BUT THE SECTION "WHEN NICU DADS TALK" IS DESIGNED EXCLUSIVELY FOR YOU TO READ WHILST YOU ARE SPENDING TIME NEXT TO YOUR CHILD IN THE NICU.

TO GET A SENSE OF HOW BIG THE COMMUNITY IS, READ "OUR FUNDING SUPPORTERS" AND JOIN THE FACEBOOK PAGE.

This is a book designed to be used, and then read.

This is a warts and all book, which is why I've used raw transcripts, rather than manicured prose for each interview.

In speaking with NICU Dads, the objective was always to hear what each past NICU Dad had to say about his experience. Every dad’s experience is different.

The important point was to hear their story and hear the nuances and the challenges and the way in which they faced them. The way they addressed their unique circumstances was what I was really interested in discovering.

In preparing the chat structure, I really only had one consistent opening and that was How you get to the NICU?.

It’s really the simplest place to start on what is at times and can best be described as a complex human experience.

Begin at the beginning, go on until you come to the end, then stop borrowed from the Mad from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, was my general theme to explore the madness of the NICU.

As most Dads I spoke to will tell you, you really do feel like Mad Hatter in the NICU environment.

But to underpin the entire NICU conversation starting at the entry seem like the only genuine and the logical way two get a sense of how their experience evolved over time. And being a NICU, time isn’t linear.

There is nothing linear in NICU, except counting the days which by default are sequential.

Quite often in the NICU, children progress and then children regress, progress, progress, regress, regress, progress. Sometimes there is no progress and it just goes backwards or sideways.

Sometimes you go backwards and sideways. Sometimes you’re forwards then sideways then forwards and back.

We were all hoping for linear. But there is nothing linear about a NICU stay, except the way the calendar counts down the days.

So anchoring the commencement of the chat about how they earnt their spot into the intensive care unit just seems like the only sane logical place to begin.

My opening question was So, how did you get into NICU? It seems like an easy access points for the Dads as well.

The chats then seem to form around supporting partners through the Caesarian experience, supporting children those new born in NICU as patients as well as pre-existing children, broader family, friends and work.

Each Dad tells a unique story.

My role was simply to act as a facilitator or an observer as participant in classic research parlance.

Although I did share common experiences in the chat from time to time and having had is NICU experience myself, I could relate and connect but also probe into areas that I felt could assist future NICU Dads.

In each of the chats, the Dads do the vast majority of the talking and sharing with what are at times quite confronting and personal moments.

This is the first time many Dads have shared their personal story in such detail before.

I feel privileged to have been the person they share their story with and I hope that’s telling their story has also given them something of benefit in return.

Many of the Dads make the comments that they enjoyed the conversation.

In the debriefing chats after recording, we often spoke of how good it was to have an extended conversation with someone who knew what it was like and could relate to their experience in the intensive care unit.

Now, what you about to read is an amazing series of contributions from men that want to make the journey easier for the next NICU Dad.

I applaud their compassion, their openness and their desire to make the NICU a less daunting experience for men. They have been my inspiration, as much as my own NICU children.

The transcript chapter contains the raw transcriptions from those interviews.

They have only been edited to the extent where the ahhs and umms have been removed, but everything else is still there.

I’ve also added in the timestamp in the transcription.

This is for anyone wanting to watch the videos we recorded from Skype or listen to the pod casts and wants to hear the Dad’s words spoken or to watch the interviews unfold as the Dads work through their thoughts.

The time stamps will be your best friend!

As you are reading these unique, and personal transcripts, please remember that everyone involved in this process has given freely of the time and of their experiences.

For that they will be rewarded if future NICU Dads, NICU researchers, NICU Doctors, NICU Nurses, NICU health professionals everywhere recommend The NICU Beard Club resources to those that could most benefit from their experiences.

One single purpose united us: to improve the experience of future NICU Dads, the essence of The NICU Beard Club.

Stay in Touch with Other NICU Friends

To get updates as they happen, stay in touch with The NICU Beard Club, follow us here:

Twitter: @NICUBeard

Facebook: @NICUBeard

Special Thanks

There are a large number of people that have contributed to the development of this resource.

On behalf of all NICU Dads, I deeply thank you for your contribution in making this resource a reality.

Thanks firstly to my wife Kirsten.

Kirsten is the central player in our family NICU story.

Her resilience to keep taking one step after the next are inspirational and we as a couple both were challenged and bonded by negotiating the NICU together.

Over the past 2 years, while I was having conversations with NICU Dads on Skype or doing research, Kirsten kept the home going, the kids well fed, bathed and rested. So, on behalf of myself and all NICU Dads, thank you Kirsten x

To my amazing daughter Maisie and wonderful son Rupert.

Your amazing fighting spirit getting through what seemed insurmountable odds, gave us hope that anything is possible. And without you, we couldn’t have changed the world of the NICU Dad for the better.

You are both growing into amazing people and I look forward to enjoying your company for many decades to come.

The Pioneering NICU Dads

Thanks to the NICU Dads who saw the value in The NICU Beard Club as it was evolving AND shared their personal stories for others to benefit;

Rodney Wilson

Paul Buxton

Dan Young

Mark Mills

Nic Mackay

David Brereton

Matt Abbott

Alan Sweeney

Lawrence Groves

My mum, Mary White

Mum has been a wonderful support for Kirsten, the kids and for me throughout my life and continues to bake her Nana bickies for the kids every time she visits. She is much loved and cherished by us all.

My father, Charles

Dad died when I was 8, to whom I now feel a greater bond after becoming a father and all its challenges I've experienced. Hope you are proud of what Ive achieved Dad.

My sister, Juanita White

A Royal Women's Hospital Cosmos midwife legend and phone-a-nurse extraordinaire, Juanita made herself available at every twist and turn of our NICU journey. Thank you!

The Royal Womens Hospital NICU Team

Amazing support from the NICU Consultants, especially Dr Carl Kuschel, Dr Rocco and Dr Omar who created the Dad's Group in their own time, out of recognising a need for Dads, and acted on it.

Its the inspiration of this team in creating and attending the Dad's Group each week at The Women's that kindled my passions to improve the lives and NICU experiences of other NICU Dads.

The NICU Nurses who cared for our children and continue to care for thousands of children each year and promote Dads Group to Dads. Great work!

And from The Women's Media team, Michelle's continued support and ideas for extending the reach of the NICU Beard Club helped me to focus on getting the book finished.

The Royal Womens Hospital Foundation

Thanks to Jan Chisholm for your ongoing belief and support in the NICU Beard Club and to Kate Gloede for her insights, ideas, support and passion to make the project a success.

The Murdoch Children’s Research Institute

Thanks to Dr Carman Pace for her research into NICU experiences. Thanks also for the support of the Media team’s Inga Feitsma and Michelle Henderson.

Thanks to Jimi Wyatt of Ginger Studios (www.ginger-studios.com)

Jimi's generosity of time and exceptional sound engineering skills in between working with international artists like Justin Bieber, are the backbone of the resources for The NICU Beard Club. He took very sketchy Skype recordings and made them into a very pleasant listening experience.

Paul Dixon & Tim Biddlecombe

The support of these two gentlemen in providing the insight to understand which questions to ask of NICU Dads and at what times was invaluable.

Felipe Ubilla

Felipe's generosity as a graphic designer saw the birth of an amazing logo that encapsulated everything The NICU Beard Club stands for.

Joan Harris A.M.

Joan Harris A.M. saw creative qualities in me years ago that I never knew existed. Her faith has sustained me in my life and on this NICU journey with three words to live life by: Risk. Trust. Allow.

To every NICU Dad around the world, past present and future:

You can do this.

Preface

So why is a NICU Dad like Quarterback?

Good question, here is my take;

He leads when it counts.

He lines up and has to understand the call from the medical team, his partner and from his child about what plays to run.

And he runs with them.

But he also has to make audible his perspective if he thinks something needs to be done or to flag something that hasn't been picked up by the medical team or when circumstances have changed.

He co-ordinates the other players in the form of family, friends. He manages the team administration, work, the bills, shopping.

Whilst he is generally not the focus before the game, when its game time and he enters the NICU, he is on!

He works hard to keep the game score ticking over and looking positively and hopefully forward and to keep the spirits of his family buoyed.

Like most things, the better prepared he is, the better he can Quarterback this game that has real life implications.

He wants everyone to do well and is on the Offensive team, progressing towards goal, or the end zone.

Sometimes they move forward. Sometimes it doesn't go the Quarterbacks way and he has to pick himself up, dust himself off, reset and continue to play. Even when he is sore and aching.

Quite literally, on behalf of his family, he wants to be in the end zone, but instead of restarting play, they start a new game - at home.

The men in this book all uniquely quarterbacked their own NICU experiences and generously shared them in this resource with you, the reader.

So, why did I spend the last 2 years researching and creating a resource for NICU Dads?

Ok, ok, so I may have over romanticised the role of NICU Dad with quarterback heroism, but I did it because there is not a lot of recognition for NICU Dads. And there should be, because they do a great job.

As Associate Professor Carl Kuschel, Head of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at The Royal Women's Hospital, Melbourne describes, a NICU Dad is often the forgotten parent.

Its a term that resonates.

The role is often one performed under duress and crisis where not a lot is known.

The language

I guess after my kids were born, there was a lot of stress, and joy, surrounding our NICU stay.

That is, a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. NICU.

I remember frantically googling NICU and nothing coming up written by past Australian NICU Dads, for current NICU Dads.

There wasn't a lot of Dad driven NICU related support as to how to go about my NICU business; to look after my family, and being able to take care of everything outside NICU and to look after myself.

Essentially, to Quarterback the entire NICU experience.

The best part of the NICU, apart from seeing how extraordinarily resilient and amazing my wife was as her partner and as a Dad, was the Dad's Group.

It made a real and positive difference.

I once described to the media the Dads Group experience in Australian Football parlance;

''In the middle of everything going on here with the kids, the siren goes and it's Dads Group, and you can relax and debrief and hear a bit from the coach - that's the doctors - and each other, the Dads. Then time's up and it's straight back into it.''

Ive always known that talking or journaling about personal issues & challenges is important to work through them. But in the heat of the NICU moment you can forget these things. And really, they should be daily non-negotiables.

Dad’s Group helped remind me of the immense value of being able to have a conversation with other men who were going through the same experience and talking about it in a way that guys didn't normally talk about.

It was my first real insight as to some of the benefits of having a group like that.

I certainly felt much better afterwards having shared some of the burdens I was experiencing because at the time, you're getting news about your child or hearing about issues with your child.

It's so much to take in, you don't actually absorb it all until later on ... you just accept it and go with it but then, you reflect on it and you don't actually often get to talk about it, let alone with like-minded individuals who know what a CPAP machine is.

And in this process I’ve discovered there are also many past NICU Dads in our community who haven’t yet dealt with their NICU experience. It still sits deep and unchallenged within some NICU Dads, painfully unresolved. Even when the child is grown and healthy.

What has been seen, cannot be unseen.

So, talking about it with other men was really helpful because they're all working with the same issues you have. You have things in common; you're both thrown into it without preparations, none of us have a manual or process or anything to about how to go about doing this (not that guys read manuals!).

We've got family to manage, we've got our partners to support, we've got our existing children to manage, our NICU child to manage and the medical issues.

We've got work, we've got bills, we’ve got to manage the rest of our lives and to put them on hold for the time being.

So, other than Dad’s Group, there's just nothing out there that really handled all that, so I just had the idea that there's a legacy here that we could create; to recreate a Dad’s Group outside The Royal Women’s Hospital – and its called The NICU Beard Club.

In Australia, there are twenty-five thousand pre-mature births that happen every year, or 8.6% of all births.

And, it just was staggering that out of twenty-five thousand, there's probably at least twenty-three or twenty-four thousand dads that are involved with the birth that no one has actually asked those NICU Dads, "So how did you do it?'

And so how DID you do it?

There's a massive amount of learning and stress that these Dads have had to endure, but we're not harvesting any of that knowledge to make it easier for the next NICU dad that comes through.

Why?

It’s desperately needed.

This book is a legacy of sorts for NICU Dads to be able to share their experiences and from sharing those experiences, they can actually help future NICU dads.

And you can't always tell what's going to resonate with another NICU Dad. It might be one sentence that someone says, or the way a NICU Dad handled an issue, or it might have been the way they handled their boss at work. You just don’t know.

But that then that a NICU Dad a bit of an insight about how to actually manage their experience and that has the power to take a lot of stress out of their NICU life.

So the process behind the book was initially just get as many Dads to tell their stories as I could and in turn give needed insight into some of the issues that NICU Dads face.

I really want to be able to make sure that future NICU dads don't have to work through from ground zero.

Here is the challenge though.

In having a baby, 99.9% of people prepare for what I call a Plan A birth, which is the perfect birth, and I call that a perfect birth because there's no major medical issues. (Its not perfect per se but after having twin prem children, it seems perfect).

Everyone’s okay, a child is born, a couple days stay in the hospital and then off they go to go home. There's balloons, there's presents, there's happy smiles, hugs, and kisses amongst family.

It’s the ideal that is pitched to every expectant couple from antenatal classes to baby food to strollers to baby clothes.

And I sincerely wish everyone a perfect birth, but that doesnt happen with a premature NICU birth.

A huge 8.6% of all births in Australia, or indeed around the developed world, result in a stay at a NICU. Now, that's every birth under thirty-seven weeks.

So, that's a lot of Plan B births that no one is planning for. Any wonders its a shock when unfortunately get into NICU.

Everyone's preparing for a Plan A, 99.9% of people are preparing for Plan A, but 8.6% of those people are going to hit a wall when they realise they actually have to do a Plan B birth, the pre-mature birth.

The stats over 2015-2016 from The Women’s are pretty compelling; the average NICU stay is two weeks.

However, if you make it to 7 days, you are likely to stay for 28 days. The shortest stay is one day, the longest is 139 days. That's pretty confronting.

Im not sure what the stats are from other hospitals around Australia or the world but I would imagine in developed nations, it would be similar.

Even so, compared to third world NICU conditions, we are very fortunate to have resources that we do in a hospital like The Women’s in Melbourne.

My Journey

The other reason I created The NICU Beard Club was because of my own process of moving through the intensity of having the kids go through NICU.

It's been really helpful for me, every interview that I have done with each NICU dad has taken me back to my experiences and that's helped me with the insight on the questions.

It's helped me empathise with the NICU Dads on each call, and we've been able to connect, which has been brilliant.

They've been sensational, and I've learned a significant amount from each of them too, and they have been brilliant.

I was also inspired by the The Women's Dads Group, and the powerful simplicity of having Dads talk to each other. The power of being able to allow the dads to have a conversation, which is the way in which the dad groups at The Royal Women’s Hospital operate.

The power exists with the NICU Dads to be able to share their experiences, not a said structure, per se, other than the fact that it opens and people can share their experience and share what's going on for them at the time.

I thank all the NICU Dads for their openness and willingness to be involved because they, in their own way, have been part of my own healing process.

The NICU Consultants are outstanding. It really is a labour of love from the NICU consultants at The Women’s.

The Dad's Group is above and beyond their paid work and Dr. Kuschel, Dr. Rocco, Dr. Omar as well as a fleet of consultants and health professionals that step in from time to time do an amazing & inspirational job.

At the time, I felt attending was really valuable, and on reflection, it's also given NICU Dads the opportunity to get more context to process the thoughts you have and the implications of that stress on you and the rest of your life.

A driver of The NICU Beard Club is some research ... my reaction to some research that came out from The Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI) by Dr Carman Pace.

The MCRI did some work in which they found that up to 50% of dads (and mums) are experiencing clinical level anxiety and depression at the point of birth of their child and the general population is around 10%.

Even at six months after the birth of a child, 20% of NICU dads are still experiencing clinical levels of depression and anxiety when the general population is at 10%.

Its understandable it's a fairly stressful time, I mean it is a NICU after all! But the fact it continues well after the discharge of the once premature baby is a worry.

Clinical anxiety and depression aren’t the feelings you associate with the arrival of a new baby, but it happens.

Let me put those numbers in context.

In Australia, that’s up to 12,500 mums and dads experiencing clinical levels of anxiety and depression per year. In the UK its approximately 15,000 and in the US it’s a staggering 250,000!

So it’s important we do something about this and get this right!

There is a general consensus that you can’t prepare for a premature birth.

The insights supplied by the NICU Dads in this book testify to that thinking. And for the first three years after the birth of my twins, I also believed that.

But now I believe that thinking is just plain wrong and misguided because the major factor that most NICU Dads report when entering the NICU, is a sense of helplessness or overwhelm.

Now, we are Dads and dads are men. Men don't like to feel helpless. Men don't like to talk about their emotions and men don't like to be told what to do.

But, we will listen to people's experiences and we'll make our own judgements based out of people's experiences. And we like a plan. And numbers.

So, this book is to go some way to reduce the feelings of helplessness that men feel in entering the NICU.

Now, that helplessness comes from a new environment, new language, new smells, new people introduced into the birthing process, new fears, new hurdles, new equipment, new machinery.

And then there is the inane, everyday issues that can frustrate because of the bigger issues you are dealing with; where are the toilets in the NICU? Where is my wife / partner’s bed located? Which floor, where? Where are the lifts? Where can I get a drink of water? Where did I park the car?

And there's new ways of thinking about your child.

It's a medical environment and sure there are lovely nana knits of booties, beanies and blankets, but if you are not careful, the medical model can take over your experience, making you feel even more helpless.

It all adds up to create an overwhelming environment. And you are dealing with primal human responses to care for a child.

It’s important to remember there is a tiny human at the centre of the process.

It’s an intense environment, in which a NICU Dad has never come across before - it's all brand spanking new.

What this book is hoping to do is to reduce some of that helplessness and replace it with a plan or some knowledge that is easily digestible.

My goal is to reduce that MCRI anxiety and depression statistic down from 50% to 25%.

If we, as a group of NICU Dads and supporters can reduce that figure as much as we can through these materials, then I feel like we will have done our job and ultimately, that's the big picture goal for The NICU Beard Club.

It will have made a contribution to NICU Dads so they can actually be better Dads and better parents for their children at the end of the day.

To better manage what they have on their plate at a time when they really need everything they’ve got to quarterback the entire experience.

I thank the pioneering NICU Dads who have contributed and who have also been through this experience, so I thank them very much.

For the NICU Dads who Ive spoken to but felt it too overwhelming to revisit their experiences, this book is for you.

And it’s not too late to talk about it.

I also want to say to the NICU Dads who have a knot in their stomach even just thinking about their time as a NICU Dad but feel too confronted by the experience to take action – this book is for you too.

Its your own private Dads Group aka The NICU Beard Club.

Also, to all NICU Dads, I'm still interested to speaking with you and sharing your stories and continue the legacy the initial pioneering NICU Dads have created.

Building a collective body of knowledge around how dads handle the NICU experience is the most powerful thing you can do for the next NICU Dad.

They're the main reasons why I created The NICU Beard Club and these Enter the NICU resources.

Hope you can get something from it.

I

The Immediate Need

IF YOU HAVE JUST BEEN ADMITTED TO NICU, PLEASE READ THIS SECTION FIRST!!

In this section, past NICU Dads & a NICU Consultant highlights what to do to make sure you can play the game of your lives as Quarterback of your family's NICU experience.

1

How to Survive the First 72 Hours of NICU

The first 72 hours within a NICU are crucial for a NICU Dad.

In this time he needs to accept his wife is dealing with her own experiences of the prematurity (it is her body) and that his child is not meant to be in the world yet and will be born before time.

Fact: This is actually happening whether you are ready or not, so get yourself ready with these tips from past NICU Dads.

The quickest way to be able to get on with is is to accept the situation and make the most of it.

Play the percentages.

It doesn't get any realer than this in life.

Put everything else aside and focus.

The past NICU Dads that have contributed to this book have collectively pooled their experience and provided their top tips to support new NICU Dads through their first 72 hours of NICU.

Also, the past NICU Dad who provided the tip has been added at the end of the tip, so you can read their extended chat and experiences.

The tips have been split into major categories of:

Managing Your Mindset (12 tips)

Support Your Partner (3)

Caring for Your Child (3)

Your Relationship With Medical Professionals (4)

Managing Family & Friends (5)

Actions to Consider (6)

Each tip has been deeply considered with the new NICU Dad in mind.

Here they are;

Manage Your Mindset

Gratitude: be grateful your baby is alive (Alan)

Work on what you can control aka yourself (Dan)

Work on what can be influenced, perhaps your partner, work, home, extended family (Dan)

It's so important to actually be hopeful and regardless of what you're being told, that won't necessarily be what happens, and sometimes in that situation, hope is all you've got- stay hopeful no matter what is about to come (Nic)

Be present: your baby is here today, enjoy them, don't worry about tomorrow (Alan)

Be observant. It's a lot to take in, but do what you can to take note of stuff, to try and understand stuff, in the knowledge that you don't have to get it all (Nic)

Ask for help (Lawrence)

Don't expect a timeframe that's going to suit what you want or need because time isn't important, your children are (Rodney)

Make sure you are mentally present for your child, your partner and yourself. Its hard sometimes but be there for every second because your family needs you (Radford)

Figure out what you can control & influence (Dan)

Be present with your partner, with your child, and with the experience to cherish those moments, even in their strangeness and unexpectedness (Nic)

Remain positive at all times (David)

Supporting Your Partner

Be there for your partner (Matt)

Support your wife and yourself and don't blame yourselves (Paul)

Relay all information to your partner especially if she is sick and stuck in bed. Keep her involved as much as possible (Mark)

Caring for your Child

Cuddle your child (if you can) and be a strong but fair advocate on behalf of your child (Paul)

Learn your babies cues and engage through kangaroo care, reading or singing, or just holding hands - let them know you care (Radford)

As soon as you can, get in there and kangaroo cuddle your children, or your child, and hold them close and do it as much as you can (Rodney)

Your Relationship With Medical Professionals

Your baby is in the best care possible. Trust the Doctors and Nurses caring for your child/ren (Mark)

Talk to the Head Paediatrician as soon as possible about your child's condition (Paul)

Trust in the Doctors and Nurses (David)

Try to always meet and acknowledge the NICU Nurses & staff every time you visit to get an update and build relationships - these are people who care for your child (Rad)

Managing Family & Friends

Get support from family & friends (Matt)

Don't feel like you have to pass on all the information that you've been given, and trying to absorb, to your family and your friends straight away. Share when you are ready to share (Rodney)

Many family & friends will say Let me know if you need anything. Give them a job; walk your dogs, make reheatable meals, water the plants, collect mail etc (Radford)

Have one person you can rely on to share updates with and give them the job of delivering the updates to your families and friends (Lawrence)

Create a Facebook page that you can post photos, thoughts and updates and invite your family and selected friends to join. That way you can direct everyone to the Facebook page instead of responding to so many texts, calls, messages and emails (Mark)

Actions to Consider

Do not use or become a Google doctor! (Lawrence)

Health monitor: write what means what (Alan)

Be involved if you are offered the chance (Mark)

Take notes or keep a log to reflect back on your experiences in years to come (David)

Make sure you get your rest (Lawrence)

Look after yourself, eat well, rest (Matt)

Over to you

Use any of these that work for you - everyone's NICU experience is different - there is no right or wrong, just experiences.

If you learn something that you feel could benefit future NICU Dads, share it on our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/NICUBeard).

That was you will help others long after you have left the NICU and you will make it easier for the next round of NICU Dads.

Just like the pioneering NICU Dads before you in this book!

2

What to Expect from Your Unexpected Delivery: A NICU Consultant Tells All

The NICU Beard Club is extremely grateful for the contribution of Dr Rocco Cuzzilla of The Royal Women's Hospital Melbourne to this NICU Dad resource.

Originally, this section was meant to be a jargon buster, pure and simple.

You know, a NICU acronym or word and a definition.

A conversational explanation, not a technical one; the internet abounds with pages and pages of technical NICU definitions.

Plus, Miracle Babies Foundation have a great list in their handbook and Life's Little Treasures have an awesome app for that purpose too.

But I sensed something bigger at hand when I had the opportunity to speak with Dr Rocco for an extended period of time, I decided to conduct a chat in the same style as the NICU Dad chats.

We did incorporate some jargon busting at the tail end of Dr Rocco's talk and let me tell you, we threw as many NICU terms at him, without notice, to define as much as we could in the final 15 minutes of the chat. As you would expect he aced it comfortably!

I thought the rare insight into a NICU Consultant would bring to light the sense of the passion, commitment, education and determination of this breed of medical professional to nurture our premmies babies to full health.

Top Tips

Dr Rocco's top three tips for new NICU Dads:

Look after yourself and allow others to look after you

Be with your baby: hold them, talk to them, change their nappy, help feed them

Take the load off you and your partner, take the time to adjust and draw upon supports that are around you.

The NICU Beard Chat

Here is the transcript from our chat with Dr Rocco Cuzzilla or the Royal Women's Hospital Melbourne;

Radford:

Hi, it's Radford here, for the NICU Beard Club.

We're very lucky here, we've got Dr. Rocco Cuzzilla here. He is a NICU consultant from the Women's, The Royal Women's in Melbourne.

Thanks very much for joining us, Rocco.

Dr Rocco:

Your welcome Rad, thanks for having me.

Radford:

My pleasure. I'm really curious, what does it take to be a NICU consultant? I'm assuming it's more than two years of apprenticeship training, but you've got to do a whole lot of work. [00:00:30]

Dr Rocco:

Yeah. Well, it starts off with paediatric training soon after your internship. So I did that coming up to about 15 years ago now.

Internship, then went onto paediatric training for a number of years and then we can branch off and sub-specialise, which is what I did, so neonatal training itself.

It's a minimum of three years after your basic paediatric training, but the [00:01:00] whole process can take up to 10. A long road.

Radford:

It is. Going through medical school, what made you want to move into paediatrics?

Dr Rocco:

I don't know. I think it was really something that I enjoyed very early on in my undergrad years. It was mostly about the kinds of families that you work with and the other doctors and nurses that you work with. It sort of selected me I think.

Radford:

Very good. Now, you've been [00:01:30] overseas with your training too, haven't you?

Dr Rocco:

Yep.

Radford:

Tell me a little bit more about that.

Dr Rocco:

Yeah, I did a stint in Toronto as part of my fellowship training. It was a great year to immerse myself in another environment.

It was very similar to the training that I had here in Australia, but it's also quite useful to pick up ways of doing things a little differently too.

Then I returned after about a year in Toronto to the Women's, [00:02:00] back in 2013, and I haven't left.

Radford:

Yep, so you've been here since 2013. I do have to do a disclaimer here. You did actually work on Maisie and Rupert when they were in the NICU and you'd just started then?

Dr Rocco:

Yeah, that's right. It would've been just shortly after they were born.

Radford:

Yeah.

Dr Rocco:

I was here when they were discharged home.

Radford:

Yes, so thank you for that, that's fantastic.

Dr Rocco:

Yep, very welcome.

Radford:

What I wanted to talk to you about today was some of the terms [00:02:30] and the way the NICU is described.

Quite often for Dads that listen to this, they'll then thrust into a NICU. Someone who's just walked into the NICU, generally being in the NICU means that it's a surprise birth, it's come early, it's premature.

How do you explain what you do, but also what the unit does to them when they walk in the door?

Dr Rocco:

I guess from the outset I try and reassure them that they're in a [00:03:00] place where they'll continue to be parents, they'll continue to be supported in providing care for their baby, I kind of introduce ourselves as their support team.

Radford:

Okay.

Dr Rocco:

A support team of doctors and nurses that'll be helping them take care of their baby.

Radford:

Yeah.

Dr Rocco:

I think that's a really important point to get across very early to parents who are newly inducted to the nursery.

I then introduce them to the team of doctors and nurses [00:03:30] that are going to be caring for their baby in the early hours, I think it's really important that they become familiar with who they are and what their role is, and show them the incubator where their baby will be cared for.

Radford:

At that point, where is the most challenging point for you when explaining all this to new parents?

Dr Rocco:

I think it's just trying to break down [00:04:00] a lot of information. Usually it's the father that comes around to the nursery with their baby, and Mums are often still in birth suite or in theatre having just delivered.

The Dads find it a little tricky, because they're not too sure where the right place to be is. Is it with their partner who's just given birth to their child, or is it with their child?

You can see that conflict on their face. I