Couplet Care in the NICU with Dr. David Paul and Tamie Hotchkiss

For the Love of Health

Becoming a parent is both life-changing and challenging. One of the first challenges some new parents face is the need for their baby to receive life-saving care in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). A small number of hospitals across the United States, including ChristianaCare, offer “couplet care” – having mother and baby cared for in the same NICU room – as a way to make a stressful situation a bit less stressful.
Dr. David Paul, chair of the Department of Pediatrics at ChristianaCare, and Tamie Hotchkiss, assistant nurse manager in the NICU, join us for this episode to explain how this revolutionary approach to care works and how it benefits both parents and babies.
We walk through the journey families have before and after couplet care, discuss how moms and babies qualify this specialized care, along with what care looks like when couplet care is not an option.
Learn where the concept of couplet care comes from and why it is such a rarity in American health care.
Dr. David Paul is one of the nation's leading neonatologists who's been recognized for his excellence in teaching, research and care. He was appointed Chair of Department of Pediatrics in June 2014. He has been a practicing neonatologist in the community since 1994 serving at ChristianaCare's Christiana Hospital and Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children as well as several other hospitals. A champion for the prevention of infant mortality, Dr. Paul has led the Delaware initiatives to decrease infant mortality and premature birth for over a decade.
Links

• Pregnancy and Childbirth at ChristianaCare
• JAMA: Association of a Zero-Separation Neonatal Care Model With Stress in Mothers of Preterm Infants
• A new day for mothers and babies in Delaware (Delaware News Journal)
• Mother-Newborn Couplet Care from theory to practice to ensure zero separation for all newborns
• Increasingly, NICUs Integrate Families into Care with Single-Family Rooms

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Capíttulos

1. Intro to Couplet Care (00:00:00)

2. Couplet Care and the NICU at ChristianaCare (00:02:32)

3. National Landscape for Couplet Care (00:04:37)

4. Quality & Safety of Couplet Care (00:05:56)

5. Feedback on Couplet Care (00:07:52)

6. NICU Parent Experience (00:10:29)

7. Future of Couplet Care (00:13:42)