A Little Background About the NICU

The Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) can be a stressful place. Bernardo and colleagues (2021) discuss how the experience is uncertain and unknown. An environment like this can make it difficult for parents to bond with their newborns. An adverse experience like this can lead to declines in a parent or caregiver’s overall health and well-being.

Creating a Space to Take What You Need

An occupational therapy student created this website as a research project to address the needs of NICU caregivers. An occupational therapist works with people of all ages. They help people develop or regain the skills needed to perform everyday activities. Seeking out help when needed is a sign of strength and resilience. The mission of this website is to provide caregivers with mental health education and resources. 

Knowing The Facts

  • 21-100% of NICU mothers experience pain and find it challenging to cope after leaving the hospital (Staver, 2020)
  • “When the parents’ needs aren’t met and their own mental health is compromised, it is unrealistic to ask them to play a central role in the child’s healing process” (Ford & Courtois, 2013)
  • Depression and anxiety symptoms are 2-5 times higher in mothers with children born in the NICU (Treyvaud et al., 2019)
  • 66.2% of NICU mothers experience anxiety, compared to 46.9% of mothers with children not born in the NICU (Deshwali et al., 2023)
  • 40-50% of parents with children born in the NICU experience significant levels of depression, anxiety, and trauma (Grunberg et al., 2022)
  • NICU mothers are 39–45% more likely to experience postpartum depression, compared to 10–15% of the general maternal population (Klawetter et al., 2022)

Why is This Needed? Thoughts From Veteran NICU Parents

” Trying to find resources for myself was the hardest part. It wasn’t easy to get the information; if that makes sense, I did not know where these things were and would have to reach out to the staff on the floor and ask about it. That process made me feel like a bother to them.”

” There was not any parent programming offered to me, but looking back, if there had been, I would’ve used it.”

“My experience was like depression. I had high anxiety and depression the whole time.”

“I felt like there was such a disconnect between me and the hospital. I had just had a baby two floors up, but now that I was two floors down, I didn’t have any of the supplies or resources I needed for myself.”