NICU Cuddlers

Twenty-three to thirty-four weeks is a small amount of time in order to develop into a fully functioning human being. When these small patients are born into this world they are most likely rushed into the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), where they address their short development time as well as any underlying medical problems, whether they be associated with their development or not. These patients are our smallest and most fragile, but also some of our loneliest. Many times nursing units within hospitals are understaffed and the nurses simply do not have time to spend just holding or speaking softly to an infant going through treatment. This is where "NICU Cuddlers" come into play. These volunteer groups are starting to crop up in hospitals around
the nation and these volunteers hold, sing, and speak softly to neonates in the hospital. This provides skin-to-skin contact which helps the babies regulate sleep cycles and calm down when they are getting fussy, and the extra hands around the unit doesn't hurt either. These helping hands are so important to these newborns, and being held is something that every child deserves. It's a scary world out there and when you are so tiny it is important to have a hand to hold. This makes sure that these small lives start off on the right foot. For the babies being held, once developed, they showed signs of having better stress management skills, and less anxiety than others who were faced with the same situation but were not cuddled. This affection is also often used for babies who are born with neonatal abstinence syndrome. These babies are most likely being weaned off of morphine and any holding/ swaddling comforts them from either withdrawal symptoms or other irritation that can cause fussiness. Access is a problem in this situation, for many hospitals and health networks the act of bringing in an unlicensed volunteer to hold their most fragile patients is considered a liability.
With no major clinical trials or evidence to support these cuddlers, many hospital administrators say the treatments are experimental and chose not to recruit these types of volunteers. Major hospitals which have decided to enroll cuddling volunteer groups include, The University of Chicago's Comer Children's Hospital, Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx New York, and Golisanos Children's Hospital in Rochester New York. These hospitals are pioneering a new way to care for critical cases such as these with a loving touch. This raises the quality of care, and most importantly stops children from crying. Crying children is already difficult to watch, add in the fact that they are being treated in an intensive care unit before they even make it home creates a situation which calls for all the love and support they can get. NICU cuddlers are important to provide soothing care for our smallest and most vulnerable, and to insure that children in these types of situations are exposed to loving care, even if just by cuddling
them.