One of my most favorite populations to work with at Alabama was the premature infants in the NICU. Now, on my third rotation in my internship, I am once more hanging with the babies!
What's different here, is that this hospital has a Level III NICU which holds the medically complex babies who need multiple surgeries and things, as opposed to "just" being premature. The NICU I did my practicum work in Tuscaloosa is a Level II, which has premature infants who don't need all of the extra surgeries. So of the babies I see, some are term with various congenital defects or diseases, and others are premature with the same problems.
I love this rotation. In Tuscaloosa, we did a lot of multi-modal stimulation (with those babies who it was appropriate for) and soft singing and guitar because research shows that babies who get that while they are in the NICU leave on average days sooner than those who don't. Here it's a bit different. Since most of the babies I see are older with recent heart or intestinal surgeries or have tracheostomys & other tubes, strict multi-modal guidelines don't always work or aren't what the babies need. At this hospital we work on a lot more developmental skills and motor skills. Lots of the ones we see are at an age where they want a lot of face-to-face time with caregivers. We work on visual tracking (which doesn't always work because they are pretty entranced by our faces sometimes!), body awareness (we do some modified multi-modal and sing about body parts), and work toward other developmentally appropriate skills like babbling, batting and reaching/grasping objects.
Depending on the baby, sometimes they are left in their cribs, and sometimes we take them out to hold them or place them in a swing. It all depends on what is best for the little one and if there is a nurse to help you move them if they have a bunch of tubes and things.
I love the babies! It's so great to get to work with a different population of itty bitties than I already have. This internship is really providing me with some fantabulous experience!
