Now Screening: Special Care Nursery Creates Calming Spaces
By Guest Blogger Jane Promnitz, Assistant Director, Special Care Nursery, Alamance Regional Medical Center
At Alamance Regional Medical Center, we understand how important it is for our littlest patients and their families to form nurturing, emotionally strong bonds with one another. Infants in our Special Care Nursery, which is part of our Women’s Care Center, can be in our care for weeks or even months, so we are especially mindful of the importance of offering our families a calm, peaceful and private space to be together. That’s why we are now offering our families state-of-the-art decorative privacy screens, which feature soothing nature scenes.
We appreciate that having an infant in our Special Care Nursery can be stressful for families. While many newborns are ready to go home soon after birth, parents of premature newborns – some of who are as young as 30 weeks and as small as 2.2 pounds – and others requiring intensive and specialized neonatal care often need to remain at the hospital after mom heads home. This can be an especially emotional time for parents, who dedicate considerable time to forging bonds with their newborn in a hospital setting. Without intervention, the experience can often feel clinical.
Working closely with area families who have spent time in our Special Care Nursery, we selected uplifting nature scenes, such as ocean views of the sun is setting, from among the 800 offered by KwickScreens. Research has shown that, when given the choice, patients prefer nature and landscape scenes, especially in hospital settings.
The bendable, easily configurable and sanitary screens have been shown to provide a calming, healing and private environment. With the privacy of the new screens, parents can breastfeed, express milk, have skin-to-skin contact or simply be with their infants in a comfortable, relaxing place.
Also, the privacy screens have added benefits – infection and noise control. Newborns, particularly those in the Special Care Nursery, are especially vulnerable to infection, so it is important to maintain a hygienic environment. Compared to traditional hospital curtains, medical privacy screens provide extra protection. In addition, the screens serve as a barrier to ambient noise, which can increase stress levels felt by patients and families.
Research has shown that close parental attachments, especially between mom and baby, can prevent disease, boost immunity and help an infant thrive in many other ways. For those all those reasons and more, we are “now screening” at the Special Care Nursery.
Cone Health is committed to being a national leader in quality, service and cost. The integrated health care network consists of Alamance Regional Medical Center, Annie Penn Hospital, Cone Health Behavioral Health Hospital, The Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital, Wesley Long Hospital, Women’s Hospital, Cone Health Medical Group, MedCenter High Point, MedCenter Kernersville, MedCenter Mebane, Triad HealthCare Network and various outpatient clinics and programs. More than 11,000 exceptional people provide exceptional care to the people of Guilford, Alamance, Rockingham, Forsyth, Caswell and Randolph counties.
*Sponsored by Alamance Regional Medical Center
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Hi-this is beatiful and brilliant. Has there been any interest from nursing homes, assisted living facilities, etc? Certain aspects might be adapted for another type of patient, of course, but along the same lines, I think my parents and many others would benefit greatly! If anyone is available to speak to me about it, contact me any time. Thanks!