After days, weeks, or even months in the NICU, hearing the words “Your baby can go home” is a moment families may have dreamed about since the day their child was admitted.
It can also bring a new set of emotions.
Parents may feel tremendous joy and relief while simultaneously wondering how they will manage feedings, medications, medical equipment, appointments, and unexpected changes in their baby’s condition. These mixed feelings are normal. Leaving the NICU is not the end of the journey, it is the beginning of a new chapter.
What Does It Mean to Be Ready for Home?
Every baby’s discharge requirements are different. Generally, the medical team will evaluate whether the baby can safely maintain essential functions and whether the family has the education, equipment, and support needed to continue care outside the hospital.
Some babies are ready to go home without specialized equipment. Others may still require oxygen, tube feedings, respiratory treatments, medications, monitors, or other medical technology.
Before discharge, parents and caregivers should receive hands-on education about their child’s care. This may include practicing feedings, administering medication, cleaning equipment, recognizing warning signs, responding to alarms, and understanding what to do during an emergency. Dakota Home Care also notes that families receive training before discharge so they can confidently provide care whenever a private-duty nurse is not present.
Parents should continue asking questions until they feel comfortable. It may help to write questions down as they arise and request that both caregivers receive the same education whenever possible.
Preparing the Home
A baby coming home with medical needs may require more preparation than a typical nursery setup. Families may need space for oxygen supplies, a ventilator, suction equipment, feeding pumps, medications, emergency supplies, and backup power sources.
Before discharge, families can work with their hospital care team to clarify:
- Which equipment and supplies will be delivered
- Who to contact when equipment is not working
- How medications and feedings should be stored
- Which symptoms require a call to the physician
- What constitutes an emergency
- Which follow-up appointments are needed
- Who will coordinate therapies and specialty care
- How nursing services will be arranged
Families should follow the individualized instructions provided by their child’s physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists, dietitians, pharmacists, and medical equipment providers.
How Pediatric Private-Duty Nursing Can Help
For families of children with complex medical needs, private-duty nursing provides one-on-one medical care in the child’s home. A pediatric private-duty nurse may be an RN or LPN, depending on the child’s needs and care plan.
Unlike a busy hospital environment where nurses care for multiple patients, a private-duty nurse is focused on one child. The nurse monitors the child’s condition, performs physician-ordered care, responds to changes, documents services, and communicates with the family and healthcare team.
Dakota Home Care’s pediatric nursing services may include tracheostomy and ventilator care, respiratory treatments, oxygen monitoring, enteral nutrition, feeding-tube care, medication administration, central-line care, diabetes management, seizure monitoring, asthma care, neurological care, and support for premature or high-risk infants.
Coordinating the Transition Before Discharge
Ideally, planning for home nursing begins before the baby is ready to leave the hospital.
Dakota Home Care’s private-nursing admission process may begin when the family, healthcare provider, or hospital social worker contacts DHC. With the appropriate authorization, DHC communicates with the medical team, works with the family and insurance provider to determine available nursing hours, and develops an individualized plan of care.
A DHC nurse case manager can work with the family and medical team to coordinate the transition from hospital care to in-home nursing. DHC also identifies nurses who can provide care on a consistent basis whenever possible.
Because staffing, insurance authorization, physician orders, equipment delivery, and training can take time, early communication is important.
Giving Parents Space to Be Parents
Families of medically complex children often become highly skilled caregivers. They learn terminology, equipment, medications, emergency procedures, and details about their child’s condition that they never expected to know.
However, parents should not have to feel like they are on duty every moment of every day.
A pediatric nurse can manage necessary medical care while parents spend time with their child in a more natural way. They can read a story, cuddle on the couch, play with siblings, prepare dinner, rest, or simply enjoy being together.
DHC’s pediatric nurses adapt to the family’s routines and incorporate necessary care into the child’s day. For infants and young children, therapeutic care may be paired with songs, toys, tummy time, books, sensory activities, or developmentally appropriate play.
Home Is More Than a Destination
Home is where families build routines, celebrate milestones, and begin creating memories outside the hospital. With education, planning, communication, and the right support, a child with complex medical needs can receive skilled care while remaining surrounded by the people and environment they know best.
Dakota Home Care is committed to helping children safely transition from hospital to home. To learn more about pediatric private-duty nursing, call 701-663-5373. Together, we can help make home, and family life, possible.