Q2. What aspects are specific to a family transitioning from the Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) home and into early intervention?

<Cori Hill>



The family's first transition was that most parents do not anticipate their newborn needing to spend time in the NICU. The family has to adjust their dreams of bringing their infant home shortly after birth. Now their days revolve around physicians and nurses, health vitals like blood pressure and heart rate, decisions, minimal sleep, fears and worries about their baby's well-being. 

The infant's daily routines are surrounded by beeping machines, big people poking and prodding, trying to learn to eat and to wake up to the busy, chaotic world around her. Each of these activities includes transitions as the newborn attempts to regulate. And then, FINALLY, it is time to go home!

 Families face the excitement and anxiety of caring for their infant for the first time completely by themselves. Can they do it? Who will help them? They learn about early intervention and a team of providers. They learn a whole new language of eligibility, IFSPs, and supports and services.  They learn that things they thought they never could do, now become part of their daily lives.