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SALT LAKE CITY — Amber Brown said having a couch to sleep on, natural light, the ability to bring and store personal items and space to dance with her infant would have been life changing during the weeks after her son was born as he was staying in intensive care.
A new newborn intensive care unit at Primary Children's Hospital, which was unveiled on Tuesday, will give new parents the opportunity to have all of those things, with private rooms designed to have enough space that the focus is on the baby.
The hospital says it will have "the most highly specialized NICU in the Intermountain West," with surgical services, critical care and pediatric specialists.
Parents will also have a couch they can use to spend the night, which Brown said will be amazing for parents. Leaving her child each night, she said, gave her anxiety and made her want to cry.
Brown's son, Sutton, was in the newborn ICU for 34 days. He was born in Lander, Wyoming, at 41 weeks with spina bifida and multiple other health issues and was immediately flown to Primary Children's Hospital for a surgery and specialty care.
"We're very excited for the families to receive care that is better than we thought was possible," Brown said. "The NICU was amazing as is, it's hard to imagine that it could be any better, but it seems as though it's going to be."
She said her family's experience at Primary Children's "was phenomenal," describing nurses as going above and beyond in taking care of Sutton and her.
"We attribute everything to Primary Children's for saving his life. The staff is dedicated to the healing and care of all children, as well as being informative and in an array of health conditions," Brown said.
Although the new newborn facility only makes one more spot available, it is twice the size of the old facility at 34,000 square feet, said Michaela Jarvis, the newborn ICU nurse manager. This will make the area less noisy, allow for each room to have natural light to help the baby's sleep cycles and give each family more space to interact with their newborn.
Jarvis said they hope to make the rooms feel like a child's bedroom while keeping the medical equipment that the baby needs. Rather than an anxious environment where people are cramped into a small space, in these new rooms the baby will not be dominated by the equipment and will provide a "better healing environment" for both the baby and the mother, Jarvis said.
Angel Eye cameras, which were available previously, allow the parent and nurses to look at the babies at any time. One experienced nurse will have eyes on the baby 24/7 and are able to join the room using a television screen to answer questions.
"This has been a game changer for our families during this pandemic, when visitation has been restricted," Jarvis said.
Brown spoke about how important the Angel Eye camera was for her while Sutton was in the hospital.
"Even when we had to travel home to Wyoming, we were able to check on him, and that, that was everything to me. It put my heart at ease, when I was so nervous and scared, to see how he was doing," she said.
In addition to providing more space in the rooms for family members, the new facilities also provide a parent waiting area with a microwave and a refrigerator. Jarvis said it is designed to be a place where parents can gather and support each other while their infants are in intensive care, also a place they can participate in educational programs.
"At the heart of the NICU are still our wonderful caregivers who are committed to create the best possible experience for NICU families while they're in the most difficult time of their life," Jarvis said.
Katy Welkie, CEO of Primary Children's Hospital and the vice president of Intermountain Children's Health, said that she was "incredibly happy" to announce the opening of the newborn unit.
"This is a place where we care for our smallest and most vulnerable patients at Primary Children's Hospital, and it's part of our 'Primary Promise' — the commitment to build the model health system for the nation, and certainly for our patients here in Utah and the intermountain west," Welkie said.
The old newborn ICU area was built in the late 1980s, according to Welkie, and was designed to have multiple babies in each room. As technology improved, the rooms became more crowded with machines, and Welkie said hospital officials knew it was not the best environment for caring for newborns, or for many parents who live in areas throughout the Intermountain West.
"Creating an environment where not only the baby can thrive, but the parents can thrive as well, was increasingly important. ... We knew that the newborn ICU had to be part of that, that we needed to create that very, very best beginning for children that we possibly could," she said.
