To mitigate risks of COVID-19, some hospitals have instituted extreme policies banning parents from visiting their babies in the NICU.

On this popup episode, Independent Women’s Forum Julie Gunlock and Kelsey Bolar, both of whom had babies in the NICU, share their stories and concerns about separating babies from their parents in the early days following birth, and offer practical advice for new parents facing an unforeseen NICU stay.

She Thinks Podcast · NICU Bans: Considering the Health Costs to Babies and Parents

Transcript

Beverly Hallberg:

Hey everyone. It’s Beverly Hallberg. Welcome to a special pop-up episode of She Thinks your favorite podcast from the Independent Women’s Forum where we talk with women and sometimes men about the policy issues that impact you and the people you care about most. Enjoy.

Julie:

Hello, everyone. It’s coronavirus lockdown day number … What day is it? I think I’ve lost track. I hope everyone is healthy and hanging in there. I’m Julie Gunlock, the director of the Center for Progress and Innovation at IWS and I’ll be your host for today’s pop-up podcast. Today, senior policy analyst, Kelsey Bolar and I are going to discuss something that’s really quite personal for both of us. It’s an issue you might have read about in the news lately. The blanket policies being put in place in hospitals across the US that are separating premature babies from their parents.

Now, of course, this is because of coronavirus, ostensibly to keep the baby safe from the disease, but as Kelsey mentioned in a recent article she wrote on the issue, these policies come with their own health costs that should be used just as a last resort. Unfortunately, that’s not happening in some hospitals. Before we delve into this issue, let me tell you a little bit about Kelsey. In addition to being a senior policy analyst at the Independent Women’s Forum, Kelsey is an editor for the newsletter BRIGHT and she’s a contributor to The Federalist. She’s also a senior fellow at the Steamboats Institute, as well as being a frequent guest on Fox News. Hey, Kelsey.

Kelsey:

Hi Julie. Thanks for having me.

Julie:

I’m glad you’re on and I know you and I have talked about this issue in the past because we share something in common. Both of us are NICU moms, we both had babies that had to go to the NICU after being born and that is a really unique experience. Not a lot of people, thankfully not a lot of people experience it, but it really does bond people when you’ve been in the NICU. My middle son was in the NICU for 10 days and I know your baby daughter was there for quite a while, but tell us a little bit about your pregnancy and the time you and your daughter spent in the NICU.

Kelsey:

Yes, so expect the unexpected was an understatement for me. This was my first pregnancy. I am 30 years old. I am tall and pretty fit and I just always thought I would rock being pregnant. Like no problem, I got this, and for 30 weeks I did rock it. Granted I had horrible, horrible morning sickness that I completely underestimated, and looking back, I don’t know how I even functioned during that time. But yes, my pregnancy, I found out I was having a baby girl at 20 weeks and everything was healthy. We were super excited. I have to say I was doing a lot of travel for work.

And then around 30 weeks we, my husband and I went to Bermuda for a baby moon. I returned to Washington DC the next day, I was at work, at the time I was working at the Heritage Foundation, I went out to grab a sandwich across the street and all of a sudden I felt some water dripping down my leg.

Julie:

Wow.

Kelsey:

And I was weirdly calm. I don’t think I believed that it could even be possible that my water broke and it was just a few drips. And when you’re pregnant they’re like, oh, a little bit of this, a little bit of that could happen. Don’t freak out. So, I was very calm. I was so calm that I actually finished checking out and got my sandwich because I was really hungry.

Julie:

No.

Kelsey:

I did. On my way back to work crossing the street, I texted someone at work and I called the doctor and it was one of those message boards where they’ll give me a call back if it’s an emergency, they’ll call me back within the next 20 minutes or so. So, I walked back to eat my sandwich at Heritage, luckily run into all the right women, fellow moms, and as I’m walking into Heritage, it’s just more and more water’s coming out and I’m realizing, okay, maybe this is more serious. And by the time I actually went outside with some women to sit down and talk about what was happening and wait for the doctor to call back, my dress was getting soaked through. Clearly this was real, my water was broken, but I was still in denial about it.

My husband works across the street basically and I told him, “Hey, my colleague is driving me to the hospital. My water might’ve just broke. I’m not sure what’s going on. Don’t worry about coming to the hospital, Dave, I’ll let you know if it’s serious.”

Julie:

Oh my God.

I have to just interrupt and say, when you meet Kelsey, Kelsey’s like very chill. She’s very cool and I have no … It’s funny listening to you talk about this because you are, you’re a very calm, cool person. And it’s funny to think I didn’t have a similar situation as this, but I would not have been as cool as you. I would not have been as calm. And I think it’s actually really good because you don’t want to spike your blood pressure. You don’t want to have some sort of anxiety attack. And so, in some ways it’s really great that you were able to stay so calm. I’ll let you go on, but I just had to make that note.

Kelsey:

I think a lot of that is ignorance and denial because with my first pregnancy, the thought of giving birth that day was not in the realm of possibility. So, I got to the hospital and they confirmed my water was broken and the doctor, I’ll never forget, was calmly sitting next to me, it was this kind of young, good looking male doctor. And he said, “Ma’am, if you have a husband or a significant other, now might be a good time to call them. We’re going to move you over to labor and delivery.”

Julie:

Wow. Wow.

Kelsey:

And then my husband took his sweet time getting over because I think he was in denial too and then they moved me to labor and delivery and gave me, magnesium is what they give you if your water breaks early, to help with the baby and it potentially has the side effect of preventing labor. They don’t totally know that. They gave me a shot to help her lungs develop, which is pretty incredible that something like that even exists. And luckily, I didn’t know it was possible that your water could break and you don’t have to deliver that day [crosstalk 00:07:07]. But it is and so I made it 24 hours and then they moved me over to what’s called the antepartum room and I was posted up there for, I believe it was just over another, it was not quite two more weeks.

They wanted me to make it to 34 weeks because that’s when most babies lungs are developed and babies do very well. Even if they end up in the NICU after 34 weeks, their chances of survival are very, very high and their chances of long-term side effects are very, very low. I think the point when I really got emotional and had my freak out, which was inevitable to come at some point, was actually when the NICU doctor came to speak with me, when I was in that initial 24 hour [crosstalk 00:07:57] delivery room. They knew if I was going to deliver, I mean no matter what, my baby was going to be in the NICU. And I think that’s when it really hit me the gravity of the situation. And I thought, being sort of in the pro-life world prior to this, I kind of knew a little bit about premature babies and their chances of survival, but it just didn’t fully click that this was happening to me and that my baby might have to fight for her life once she was born, so.

Julie:

And I think too, I think, and Kelsey, I mean, you I’m sure were enmeshed in this culture too, is there is a sort of … And I don’t mean to be dismissive of it, but there is sort of this like industry of pregnancy and baby dumb and your newborn and how … There’s this idea that it should be ideal and perfect and you should have candles and you should have a playlist. And I mean, I bought like a designer hospital gown robe thing because I didn’t want to wear their ugly colors. I was really into this, right? And then when this happens, it sort of destroys this whole … And look, now you have your own story but it does sort of interrupt this idea of what having a baby is supposed to be like and your vision of things.

It’s a big bump in the road, and so I think, to some degree it’s hard when you finally understand what’s happening, it’s hard to kind of come to terms in such a short amount of time and you’ve got a short amount of time. I had a similar thing where I had to deliver very quickly and I wasn’t really able to understand, absorb what the doctors were telling me. It was just very uncertain time and you’re worried and you’re scared and to some degree you don’t have any choices. It’s not like someone asked you, “Would you like to have the baby now or would you like to wait?? You just have to have baby. So, I think there’s also that, it’s just coming to terms with how things are just … It changes things. It really does. So-

Kelsey:

Absolutely, I had drank all the Koolaid and was planning on attempting the natural birth, believe it or not, but that all went down the toilet and I, actually moving forward, if I’m lucky enough to get pregnant again, I will never even be considering a natural birth again. Give me the epidurals, give me the drugs. They saved me, they saved my baby girl, and I am eternally grateful for it.

Julie:

Well, so let’s skip forward. She is delivered, she does then go to the NICU. And let’s talk, I want to get to your article too. So, let’s talk about how important, and again, my child was also in the NICU and I’ll just very quickly say that … And actually I’ve never written about it and I’ve never talked about it, but I wasn’t allowed to see my child. They didn’t even let me see him. I certainly couldn’t touch him or hold him, but for 24 hours I didn’t even glance at him because I had some very dangerous health complications right after having him.

And then he did as well. He had a respiratory issue, very common after C-sections for the baby to essentially aspirate his own, the fluid, and that’s what he did. And then he developed an infection, blah, blah, blah. But the point was, is it was really horrible for me not to be able to see him for 24 hours. But then, of course, when I did see him, they could barely tear me away, and I’m sure you were the same. And talk to me a little bit about the importance of a mom. You talked about in your article of the kangaroo cuddles and why skin-to-skin is so important, particularly for newborns or for preemies. And I loved what you said, this heading in your article was, “NICU parents aren’t the same.” So, talk to me a little bit about that.

Kelsey:

Yeah, and I don’t mean to give us like a gold star and special treatment, but the truth is there are important differences between NICU parents and any other visitor to a sick patient in the hospital. So, this is something I learned, that when babies, many of them are born premature. I mean, even with a newborn, you know that skin-to-skin contact is so important. And there have been so many studies on this that have actually found that skin-to-skin contact, kangaroo care has a huge range of health benefits to the point that they actually can help premature babies survive and thrive. Some of the benefits include stabilizing the baby’s heart rate because the heart rate will really sync up to your heart rate. The baby’s used to feeling your heartbeat in the womb. In my case, my baby was still supposed to be inside of me, so her hearing my heartbeat by laying on my chest is very comforting and calming to her.

It also helps improve their breathing pattern, which is a huge issue for babies born premature. My daughter had to be on a CPAP machine to get breathing help for the first couple of days after she was born. It helps improve oxygen saturation levels, which is a big issue. It helps them sleep better. It helps them gain weight quicker. It decreases crying, and I can speak from experience on that, somehow with everything my baby girl Scarlet put me through. She’s not a huge crier. It also helps both mothers and babies breastfeed, which is so important and it’s such a challenge for NICU moms. I’m sure you experienced this too. Of course, there’s all this pressure to breastfeed and yada yada yada. But it is so important for NICU babies to have breast milk because the breast milk is, it’s incredible.

Julie:

Yeah.

Kelsey:

Your body somehow knows that your baby was born premature and your body will produce the exact mix of ingredients that baby needs at that time. And if NICUs are preventing mothers from physically being there with their babies, it can be very hard for mothers to produce that milk.

Julie:

Yeah. Let’s back up a little bit. So, basically what you wrote about is this new policy in hospitals where parents are being essentially banned from seeing their babies that are in the NICU, so they’re not being allowed to go in, to do what you say the kangaroo care or that skin-to-skin, or even touch them. I went 24 hours without seeing my middle child and it was so traumatic for me to give birth to a baby and to not be able to see it for 24 hours. And some of these parents aren’t seeing them for an extended amount of time. Tell me a little bit about the philosophy behind this, why hospitals are doing this and what kind of reaction there has been from parents who again, who are not able to see their newborns.

Kelsey:

Yeah. I do want to start out by saying this is absolutely not the policy for every NICU across the country. Fortunately, this is only the policy in a handful of NICUs and actually already, I believe, at least in one of those hospitals, they have reversed it. But it’s still, from my research, it still is the case in some hospitals across the country. And of course the reason is to protect these tiny vulnerable babies from catching coronavirus. And the thought is that the more people you can limit coming in and out of the NICU, the less chance that these babies are going to catch coronavirus because some of them are already on machines helping them breathe.

Some of them have very serious health conditions and I understand the desire to want to protect them in any way possible. But the problem and the reason why NICU babies and parents are different from any other hospital visitors is because parents, especially moms, are really a treatment for NICU babies. We provide this through this kangaroo care and through our breast milk. We really help these babies survive and thrive. And again, there’ve been a multitude of studies on all the benefits that mothers provide through kangaroo care that money really can’t buy. No modern medicine can provide the benefits that we as mothers can provide to our NICU babies.

Julie:

Well, and the thing is too, is that, look, this has a low infection rate among children and babies, coronavirus, I think that we … We actually wrote a joint blog today on these faulty models. I think you and I both have a lot of sympathy for governors that came down with some pretty hardcore restrictions early on when they saw these models predicting millions dead, mass graves. Just an absolute sort of Black Death kind of bring out your dead scenarios. I mean, I think, certainly when you look at the actions of Senator Mike DeWine, actually my old boss, I used to work for Mike DeWine for years when he was in the Senate.

But for governor Mike DeWine, he was really worried about the models that were predicting this sort of massive death toll but he’s actually now to open the economy in Ohio back and to roll back some of these policies. And I do think this is also when you look at … And I know these are a limited number of hospitals are doing this with NICUs, but we’re also seeing people who are dying in hospitals and they’re not allowed to see their families. People are dying alone. And, again, I know some of this is not, they can’t prevent this reality, but it’s also a reason why we need to have testing. I mean, we need to be able to test these people and see if they are not infected, then they should be allowed into the hospital and they should be allowed to see these patients and be with their loved ones.

And I think it’s the lack of testing, which is causing some of, what I consider pretty draconian policies, like keeping parents away from their babies. The other thing I wanted to note is, and I’m sorry I’m all over the place, but there’s an awful lot of NICU babies who were there, for instance, mine, he needed to, they call it eat and grow. I think there’s another term for it, but basically he just needed to get bigger, and so he needed to eat a lot. And babies, you had mentioned, especially babies that are born a little bit early, it helps them to feel good and feel nurtured and to be with their mothers and have that kind of skin-to-skin care, so that they can’t eat a lot because they really need to grow.

I’m sure your daughter was born at a very low weight and she really, really needed to grow. And so, that’s another benefit to these babies of having their mothers there and being with someone who can hold them close.

Kelsey:

Right. And I completely agree with you on testing and I think most Americans would be okay with NICU parents falling somewhere towards the top of the food chain for priority levels, for some of those rapid response testing that they could take before they enter the NICU. But that’s the thing, I find it kind of leads to the larger conversation about how to reopen parts of the economy. How can we be reasonable in the policies that we’re setting forth?

And I think when it comes to NICUs, I don’t know about your NICU, but the NICU that my daughter was in, allowed only two visitors at one time. So, that means I could be there with my husband or I could be there with one of my family members, but we could not have more than two visitors at a time and that’s very reasonable to me. And as difficult as it would be, I would understand them even, under these circumstances, limiting that number to one person at a time so that there’s even fewer. And then also mandating that we are wearing masks and personal protective equipment when we are walking in and out of there. But taking the giant leap to just banning anyone, including mothers, from the NICU is just a step way too far in my opinion. And you have to weigh that with the costs that come with it.

Julie:

Well, we talk about the cost to the child, but the other thing is, is that women are very prone to postpartum depression. And this is something that I have known people that it has affected. I was never diagnosed, but I kind of look back on my early days and I had stairstep kids. My first two are 18 months apart, my second two are 20 months apart. So, there is a span of like six years where I was just pregnant and then I spent another six years with teeny teeny humans and I was pretty much overwhelmed much of that time. And I will tell you that I’m sure that I sort of probably had moments of depression.

And I will say with my second one who was in the NICU, it was such an incredible stressful time. I also had some health complications because of it. And that 24 hours that I was away from him was just, it was very, very hard on me. I felt tremendous guilt and a whole bunch of just really, just a range of feelings. And I’m sure you feel the same way of just … And it’s silly, but you do, you just feel so out of control. I also felt very afraid. Afraid to sort of bother anyone in the NICU and I remember in conversations that we’ve had, you have similar feelings about not really understanding, not really knowing what … It’s all so overwhelming and so confusing that you don’t even know enough to ask the right questions and so I think we also need to remember that this is also a burden for women. It’s a health risk for them, for their mental health, not to be around their brand new baby.

Kelsey:

Right. That’s actually my biggest fear when it comes to these NICU bans is finding out that your baby has to stay in the NICU is one of the most overwhelming experiences you can ever have. In my case, I had about less than two weeks to mentally prepare for that, between the time my water broke and by the time Scarlet arrived. How long did you have before you found out that your baby was going to be in the NICU?

Julie:

My son, Henry, went into a respiratory distress as he was born and they whisked him away without me seeing him. He was in a pretty critical … He could not breathe and then I subsequently had some problems, so mine was immediate. I was told after he was born that I wouldn’t be able to see him and that he would be in the NICU and he wouldn’t be coming home. So, for me it was like I didn’t have any time to prepare and it was a real shock. It was really shocking. And then, but then you’re in it, you’re just in it and you can’t … There’s really no time, and even though you had two weeks, it’s never enough time if you’re not going to bring your child home immediately. It’s very, very hard a reality to deal with.

Kelsey:

Right. And then you have to figure out how to advocate for yourself. And I think all of us NICU parents can look back at certain moments and say, “Oh, I wish I stood up for myself and said I felt uncomfortable about X, Y, Z.” Or, I remember one time a nurse accused me of falling asleep in the chair and told me I couldn’t hold my baby when I was just closing my eyes, having a peaceful moment for her. And it’s all those moments where you kind of take it as a mother because you don’t know what … This is a whole new situation and looking back there’s so much I would change and that’s why I thought it was so important for us to talk about this on a podcast, so that if anyone knows a mother who is going through this, to listen and know that you can and should advocate for yourself in the NICU.

I mean, especially if you are a parent who has been told you cannot have physical contact with your baby. At that point, if that were me, I would consider having my baby transported to a different NICU that would allow me to have that skin-to-skin contact because exactly what you said, there’s health benefits to the baby and to the mother. And then there’s those mental health benefits that are just so, so important. And so, I also wanted to mention that there’s actually a petition online. It’s called Safeguard Family Rights and Rules That Ban Parents From the NICU and COVID-19 Crisis. It was started by the founder of Empowered NICU Parenting. It’s empowerednicuparenting.org. They also have an Instagram.

And they’re kind of looking at the different hospitals that are banning parents and trying to call them out and advocate for them to change these policies, and they actually had success in helping to reverse one of the policies. So again, if you know someone who is being told by doctors, they are not allowed to physically see their baby, I would really encourage you to stand up for yourself and try to advocate for a way for that to be reversed.

Julie:

Kelsey, I am so happy that you mentioned that and I think this is probably a good place to wrap up, although I will tell you that I could probably, we could … I could talk about this for two more hours and our producer would just stop recording at some point because she probably has other things to do. But I will tell you, it’s such an important topic and it’s a little bit hard to talk about these things, but it’s so critical that new moms understand that they can, as you say, stick up for themselves and advocate for themselves and their babies. And women, I think, during this time, especially pregnant women need to understand this is a possibility. Go to your hospital beforehand, find out what their rules are, find out what their policies are and really get a good sense of what they’re going to say.

Because I think for you and I, you and me, we didn’t have a lot of time to prepare, but this is the time to do it if you can, find out what your hospital’s policies are and investigate that a little bit more and advocate for yourself. So, Kelsey, thanks so much for ending it on that. I think that’s a really important point.

Kelsey:

Thank you, Julie.

Beverly:

Well, we hope you take away something new from today’s conversation, and if you enjoyed this episode of, She Thinks, or liked the podcast in general, we’d love it if you could take a moment to leave us a rating or review on iTunes. This helps ensure our message reaches as many Americans as possible. Share this episode and let your friends know that they can find more She Thinks episodes on their favorite podcast app. From all of us here, you’re in control, I think, you think, she thinks.