‘I felt I had failed my baby spectacularly’: Mothers talk about the difficulties of neonatal intensive care

The knowledge that your newborn baby is receiving life-saving treatment is stressful to process. Lauren Crosby Medlicott speaks to mothers about the changes that could make time spent in NICU easier

I just constantly felt like I didn’t know what was best for my baby (Getty/iStock)

With Mother’s Day fast approaching, Dr Frankie Harrison, a clinical psychologist who works with families who have been through neonatal intensive care, uploaded an Instagram post that said: “NICU mamas should never have to...”

The subsequent slides listed a handful of things that mums of children in neonatal intensive care units (NICU) have experienced while their newborn babies are receiving life-saving treatment in hospitals – like being placed on a postnatal ward with other newborn babies, and being told they aren’t allowed to hold their babies. More than a thousand mums responded to the post, sharing their own experiences of being NICU mamas.

“Most parents who go to NICU don’t expect they are going to end up there, yet one in seven babies need support from neonatal care,” Harrison says. “Initially, the feeling is often shock, and what can come with that is a spike in anxiety, hypervigilance, or numbness and dissociation as a way to cope with what is happening.”