About family integrated care

Research shows that family involvement in the care of your neonatal baby can reduce stress on your baby and their length of hospital stay.

Family integrated care (FICare) supports you to actively care for your baby during its neonatal journey. Our Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) team encourages you to participate in family integrated care by:

• supporting you to be involved in your baby’s care to the best of your ability
• inviting you to participate in ward rounds
• providing education and peer-to-peer support.

While your baby is in our NICU we will:

• encourage you to interact and spend time with your baby
• provide you with the skills and knowledge to care safely for your baby.

Kangaroo care

Kangaroo care is a method of skin-to-skin contact which promotes parent and baby bonding, especially for premature and sick babies.

It involves holding your baby, dressed only in a nappy and a hat, between a mother’s bare breasts or on the father’s chest, similar to how a kangaroo carries their young.

Benefits for your baby include:

• a stable heart rate and more regular breathing pattern
• improved oxygen saturation levels
• longer periods of sleep
• more rapid weight gain
• more rapid brain development
• decreased crying
• longer periods of alertness
• more successful breastfeeding
• returning home earlier from hospital.

Benefits for you as a parent include:

• helping you bond with your baby, even though your baby is in hospital
• gaining confidence your baby is well cared for in the NICU
• becoming confident you can care for your baby.