Community Corner
Viewfinder: Bryn Mawr Hospital's NICU Reunion
Families of Bryn Mawr Hospital's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit reunite with doctors, nurses, and staff.
Some of the children at the Annual NICU Reunion Party at had no idea that they were in a way celebrating the very fact that they were there on Sunday. In the earliest days of their lives those children had been patients of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, the unit where newborns with serious challenges to life spend their earliest days.
The event gave more than 100 families of babies who spent time in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Bryn Mawr Hospital the opportunity to return to visit with NICU staff, doctors, and nurses. A magician and face-painters were there to entertain the children, along with a craft-making table. Bryn Mawr Hospital’s Women’s Board and the Parents Advisory Network co-sponsor the yearly reunion.
One in eight babies, the March of Dimes reports, are born much earlier than the optimum delivery date and they need specialized care in the effort to assure survival, according to a press release issued by Bryn Mawr Hospital. The Main Line Health System, which includes Bryn Mawr, Lankeneau, Paoli and Riddle hospitals, treats more than 700 patients a year in its neonatal units. About 350 of those babies require intensive care. Stays in the care unit can be from a few days to a few months. The doctors who work in the NICU service are all specialists connected with Neumours, Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, and the NICU has been in operation for 29 years.
