Introduction
Welcome to the Empowering NICU Parents’ Podcast!
The Empowering NICU Parents’ Podcast blends professional insight with deeply personal experience in a way that every NICU parent and clinician can relate to.
What happens when the person trained to understand trauma is suddenly the one living it?
What happens when a psychologist becomes a NICU parent himself—when the experience becomes personal, and the theories are no longer abstract but lived, breathed, and survived?
For Dr. Michael Hynan, that moment came in 1980, when a 4 a.m. call informed him that his baby would be born 10 weeks early. That experience would split his life into “before” and “after”—and ultimately mark the beginning of a lifelong purpose.
In this powerful conversation, Dr. Hynan—who prefers to be referred to as Mike—shares his honest, vulnerable, and deeply human story. He reflects on the helplessness of those early NICU days, the emotional aftermath, and how that journey reshaped his work in a profound way.
Through his research, writing, and decades of advocacy, Mike has helped pave the way for how we think about and support NICU parent mental health. He has been a consistent voice in raising awareness around the emotional toll of the NICU—and in championing the need for trauma-informed, family-centered care. He also strongly advocates for the inclusion of fathers in every aspect of care—emphasizing that they, too, deserve to be spoken to, updated, and engaged just like mothers.
And in honor of Father’s Day weekend, we explore a topic that’s still too often overlooked: NICU fathers. We discuss their emotional needs, their role, and how care teams can do more to include, empower, and support them—not just during the NICU stay, but far beyond discharge
The Why Behind Empowering NICU Parents – Empowering NICU Parents' Podcast
- The Why Behind Empowering NICU Parents
- From NICU Experience to Nonprofit Mission: A Family’s Journey to Today Is a Good Day
- The Lifelong Journey and Impact of Premature Birth: What Families Should Know
- Wave of Light: Finding Light After Loss
- Culture, Belief, and a Committed Team: The University of Iowa NICU Redefines What’s Possible
- Hope Against All Odds: Nash Keen’s Journey as the Most Premature Infant to Survive
Episode Sponsors
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Episode 70
Our Guest
Dr. Michael Hynan
Dr. Michael Hynan is a clinical psychologist and NICU father whose personal and professional experiences have profoundly shaped the way we understand emotional distress in NICU families.
He grew up on the south side of Chicago and has been married to his wife for over 55 years. Now retired for 18 years, Mike and his wife split their time as snowbirds—spending winters in Key Largo, Florida, and summers in northern Wisconsin. Their son, Christopher, who was born 10 weeks early and spent 42 days in the NICU, now lives in Brooklyn, New York.
That NICU experience in 1980 changed everything. Mike went on to author The Pain of Premature Parents: A Psychological Guide for Coping and developed the Perinatal Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Questionnaire (PPQ), which has since been used worldwide in clinical and research settings and translated into multiple languages. He has served on the boards of the Wisconsin Association for Perinatal Care, the Perinatal Foundation, and the Journal of Perinatology. Mike is also an emeritus board member of the National Perinatal Association, a mentor within the National Network of NICU Psychologists, and a dedicated member of both the NICU Parent Network and the Family-Centered Care Taskforce. His lifetime of contributions to advancing NICU mental health have earned him numerous honors, including the Outstanding Individual Award from Parent Care, Inc., the Callon-Leonard Award from WAPC, and both the Stanley Graven and Stanley and Mavis Graven Awards.
Life Before and After the Call: The Birth of Christopher
Mike shares the story of his wife Lauren’s unexpected complication during her 30th week of pregnancy, marked by the terrifying discovery of significant bleeding in the early hours of the morning. The urgency of the situation, compounded by their OB being out of town, left them shaken.
Lauren was admitted and monitored, and while initial updates seemed hopeful, Mike was soon awakened by a phone call telling him it was time. She would undergo an emergency C-section, and their son, Christopher, was born prematurely and admitted to the NICU.
Mike describes the fear and helplessness of those moments—of sitting in a hospital room, trying to grasp what was happening. Then one of their guardian angels, Dr. John Glaspy walked into the hospital room—someone Mike had never seen before—and said to him:
“Congratulations, you have a fine son.”
He then invited Mike to scrub in and go into the NICU to touch his baby—an act Mike remembered as one of the most meaningful and affirming moments during a time of fear and uncertainty. That early introduction to his son behind the glass, and the invitation to touch him, marked the beginning of both a fragile new relationship and a fatherhood experience that would be unlike anything he imagined.
A NICU Father’s Experience: Jerry Adler’s Words and Mike’s Reality
When I asked Mike about how the experience of his son being born prematurely impacted him, he read an excerpt from an article by Jerry Adler titled “What If Your Worst Nightmare Came True? A Father’s Tale,” —a father’s raw, firsthand account of NICU trauma originally published in Esquire. The excerpt encapsulates the often-unspoken terror, helplessness, and guilt that many NICU fathers carry quietly.
The piece captures the raw fear and helplessness of a father witnessing his newborn struggle to survive—a narrative that deeply resonated with Mike and closely mirrored his own early days as a NICU parent.
Dr. Michael Hynan shares how becoming a NICU parent reshaped his life and career. He reminds us that healing takes time, support matters, and when care teams truly listen and respond with compassion, they help families not just survive—but grow stronger. Every parent’s story deserves to be seen and heard.
Mike notes how closely Adler’s story mirrors his own—specifically the moment he called his mother at 4 a.m., saying, “Mom, I got a call from the hospital. It’s time to pray.”
Emotional Impact and the Early Days of Parenting
Mike opens up about the emotional and psychological aftermath—not just for himself, but for his wife Lauren. While he bonded quickly with Christopher, Lauren initially struggled, which he acknowledges was shaped by the trauma she had just endured. He shares the painful but honest memory of her first words upon seeing their baby: “It’s hard to believe anything good could come of this.”
Mike reflects on how he began to take on the primary caregiving role in those early days, and later felt a sense of jealousy when Lauren, having recovered enough to visit the NICU, began to take part in caring for their son. But he also recalls the conscious decision to step back and support her bonding process without letting his own ego interfere—something he believes helped them both as parents.
From Lived Experience to Lasting Purpose
In the early, uncertain days of Christopher’s NICU stay, Mike did what many of us would do—he went looking for answers. As a psychologist, he assumed there must be something out there to help him and Lauren understand what they were going through emotionally. He rushed to local bookstores in search of a book—anything written for NICU parents about coping with prematurity and emotional distress. What he found, however, was outdated, bleak, and clinically incorrect—one book told him that his baby had only a 50% chance of survival, which, thankfully, wasn’t true even in 1980.
Despite being a trained psychologist, Mike quickly realized that his academic training hadn’t prepared him for the emotional weight of watching his own child struggle to survive. Wanting guidance, he approached his neonatologist, Dr. John Glaspy, to ask what he and Lauren should expect emotionally during the NICU journey. Dr. Glaspy couldn’t offer much direction—perhaps out of caution, or because, at the time, there simply wasn’t research or protocol to guide that type of support for parents. As a result, Mike and Lauren received no formal psychosocial or mental health support while their son was in the NICU. No social worker ever came to speak with them.
This lack of support was a turning point. As Mike reflected later, the trauma of that experience, combined with the professional void surrounding NICU parent mental health, compelled him to shift the entire direction of his career.
Soon after Christopher came home, Mike discovered Parent Care—an organization founded by parents from NICU support groups in cities across the U.S. He began attending meetings, listening to stories, and connecting deeply with other NICU parents. The questions he kept hearing from them—“Will I ever get over this?”—resonated with his own unspoken fears. It was clear that many parents were experiencing symptoms of trauma, but there were no tools available to assess or treat it.
That insight led Mike to a journal article on PTSD assessments developed for Israeli soldiers. He began adapting the questions specifically for NICU parents, creating what would become the Perinatal Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Questionnaire (PPQ)—a tool that has since been used globally, in both clinical and research settings, and translated into multiple languages.
He also wrote The Pain of Premature Parents: A Psychological Guide for Coping to offer the kind of insight and support he had gone searching for himself. While he now acknowledges that the book reflects a time when he believed his story might represent all stories, it served as a foundational step in helping both himself and others begin to process what the NICU experience really means for parents.
What started as a personal quest for understanding and support became a professional calling—one that has shaped decades of work in family-centered care, NICU mental health research, interdisciplinary collaboration, and education. That single NICU experience in 1980 changed the course of Mike’s life—and in doing so, helped change the landscape of how we support NICU families today.
The Emotional Landscape of the NICU Experience
One of the most important takeaways from Dr. Hynan’s work—and his personal journey—is the understanding that emotional recovery after a NICU experience does not follow a single path. While terms like trauma and PTSD are often used broadly in neonatal care, Mike cautions against assuming that every parent walks away from the NICU with the same emotional wounds, or even that every parent has been “traumatized”.
He draws on the work of trauma researcher Dr. George Bonanno, who coined the phrase “potentially traumatic event.” Mike believes this is an essential shift in framing the NICU experience—not as inherently traumatic, but as an event that has the potential to cause trauma, depending on the individual and their circumstances.
Based on Bonanno’s research and three different studies on NICU parents specifically, Mike describes four common emotional trajectories:
- Resilient – These parents experience emotional distress but are still able to function, love, work, and bond. They may cry or feel overwhelmed, but they adapt. About 30% of NICU parents fall into this group.
- Chronic – These parents experience ongoing psychological distress that remains high over time. Many have pre-existing mental health conditions or previous trauma histories that may be intensified by the NICU experience. They may struggle with parenting, relationships, or daily functioning.
- Recovery – These parents start out with a high level of emotional distress, but their symptoms gradually lessen over time as they find support, meaning, or emotional resolution. Their trajectory mirrors a return to resilience.
- Delayed – This is the smallest group. These parents appear emotionally stable at first, but their distress increases over time. They may have repressed or minimized their emotions early on, only for the full weight of the experience to surface months later.
Mike urges NICU care teams to understand that each parent’s experience is unique—and so is their path forward. There is no universal timeline for healing. What looks like strength may be masking trauma. What looks like distance may be emotional self-preservation. And what one parent needs may be vastly different from what their partner or co-parent needs.
He challenges professionals to move away from assumptions and toward relationship-based care:
Get to know the mother. Get to know the father. Understand their fears, their goals, their history. Recognize that parents bring their whole selves—their grief, hopes, identities, and past experiences—into the NICU. And those realities shape how they respond and recover.
This understanding has deeply informed Mike’s work advocating for trauma-informed, family-centered care. He believes that by truly seeing and listening to each parent, we can offer support that meets them where they are—not where we assume they should be.
Advancing the Field: Interdisciplinary Guidelines and the NPA
As his research deepened and his connections with other NICU professionals and parent groups grew, Mike found himself part of an expanding network of individuals equally passionate about family-centered care. Over time, this led him to the National Perinatal Association (NPA)—an organization that brings together diverse voices from across perinatal care, including clinicians, researchers, psychologists, and parents.
Through the NPA, Mike collaborated with like-minded professionals and emerging leaders in the field, including neonatologists, NICU social workers, and NICU psychologists who were beginning to meet regularly to share insights, challenges, and ideas. What started as informal calls and conversations gradually evolved into a more organized and influential community. Eventually, these connections helped form the foundation of the National Network of NICU Psychologists (NNNP)—a group dedicated to strengthening mental health support within neonatal care.
Out of these collaborations came one of Mike’s most impactful contributions: his role in helping to develop the 2015 Interdisciplinary Guidelines for Psychosocial Support Services for NICU Parents, published by the NPA. These guidelines provided the first comprehensive, evidence-informed framework for ensuring NICU families receive emotional and mental health support—during their hospital stay and beyond. They addressed not just what should be offered, but who should offer it, when, and how.
These guidelines emphasized a team-based approach to care, including psychologists, social workers, nurses, physicians, and peer supporters. Importantly, they also centered on the idea that parents are not just visitors—they are essential members of the care team, with their own unique needs, vulnerabilities, and strengths.
While Mike humbly acknowledged in the episode that it can take up to 10 years for published guidelines to influence widespread practice, he’s already seen evidence of their impact—influencing hospital policies, training programs, and how NICU teams think about supporting families holistically.
Today, Mike continues to serve as an emeritus board member of the NPA, a mentor in the National Network of NICU Psychologists, and a member of the Family-Centered Care Taskforce—furthering his legacy as a leader in the movement to transform NICU care through empathy, science, and collaboration.
Fathers in the NICU: Seen, Heard, and Valued
As we approach Father’s Day, this conversation brings important focus to a group that continues to be overlooked in both NICU research and daily practice: fathers.
We discussed how fathers are significantly underrepresented in research on NICU parent mental health. Most studies center on mothers, leaving care teams with limited insight into how fathers experience the NICU and what support they may need. This gap in understanding often extends into practice, where fathers may be treated as less emotionally impacted or less central to their baby’s care—when in reality, their presence and emotional health are just as important.
Mike shares that, in his view, fathers should be spoken to directly and treated as equal partners in their child’s care—not differently, not as secondary, and certainly not as optional. While there may be differences in how individuals cope, those differences should be understood as personal, not defined by gender. Every parent should be approached with the same openness, respect, and inclusion.
He offers a practical and powerful suggestion for NICUs: display a large photo of a father doing skin-to-skin care near the entrance to the unit. For many dads, especially early in the NICU journey, this simple visual sends an affirming message: you matter here. You are not just allowed in this space—you are essential.
Care teams can better engage and empower fathers by actively inviting them into care routines from the start. This means explaining their role in language that is direct and inclusive, offering hands-on opportunities like diapering, feeding, and kangaroo care, and acknowledging their emotional responses with the same seriousness and compassion given to mothers. Asking dads what they need, how they’re feeling, and how they’d like to be involved sends a clear message: you belong.
Mike also reminds us that some fathers may return to work quickly, or feel pressure to be the emotionally “steady” one. These realities often leave their own emotional needs overlooked. By checking in regularly, offering peer support options, and including them in care team conversations, NICUs can create an environment where both parents feel seen, heard, and valued.
When fathers are engaged, supported, and empowered from day one, families are stronger. Babies benefit. And the foundation for long-term, collaborative caregiving is set—not just inside the NICU, but at home and for years to come.
The Importance of Peer Support and Post-Discharge Care
One of the most meaningful parts of our conversation centered on what happens after families leave the NICU—and how often, that’s when the emotional weight of the experience truly begins to surface. While so much of the focus in neonatal care is placed on survival and discharge readiness, there is often little guidance or support once families walk out the hospital doors.
Mike shared that after Christopher’s discharge, he and his wife, Lauren, each sought out individual therapy, which became an essential part of their healing. It was only then that they began to unpack everything they had held inside during their son’s NICU stay.
We spoke about how critical it is for NICUs to plan for and prioritize post-discharge follow-up, not just in terms of medical care, but emotional care as well. Discharge may mark the end of a hospital stay—but it is often the beginning of a new phase of distress, identity shifts, and lingering fear for parents. Routines are gone, families feel more isolated, and the emotional armor they wore to survive the NICU often begins to crack once they’re home.
Mike is a strong advocate for peer support programs, both in the NICU and as families transition out. He believes that support from someone who has lived through the NICU experience offers a kind of understanding and comfort that professionals alone may not be able to provide. And when hospitals are unable to staff adequate psychosocial support, he encourages partnerships with organizations like the NICU Parent Network, Hand to Hold, and Graham’s Foundation, which offer structured, accessible, parent-to-parent support.
We agreed that hospitals need to have clear, intentional strategies for post-discharge follow-up. That includes checking in with families weeks and months after they leave, offering mental health referrals, hosting support groups or virtual check-ins, and simply creating a culture where it’s okay for parents to say: “I’m not okay.”
When we extend care beyond the NICU walls, we help families build resilience—not just for the immediate road ahead, but for the years to come. As Mike shared from both personal and professional experience, healing often begins after discharge—and families deserve to be supported every step of the way. For the infant to have the most optimal chances of positive neurodevelopment and long-term progress, their parents must be emotionally supported and mentally healthy as well.
Contact Dr. Michael Hynan
Email: hynan@uwm.edu.
Closing
Dr. Michael Hynan’s journey from psychologist to NICU parent to national advocate is a testament to the power of lived experience. His decades of work have reshaped how we understand and support NICU parent mental health and have helped guide the field toward a more inclusive, trauma-informed, and family-centered model of care.
His story is a powerful reminder that the NICU journey doesn’t end at discharge. Healing takes time—and families need more than hope. They need continued support from peers who’ve walked the path, access to mental health professionals who understand the depth of their experience, and care teams that meet them with empathy, compassion, and respect.
Every parent enters the NICU with their own fears, histories, and hopes. When care teams take time to understand those individual stories, we not only ease the emotional burden—they build trust, strengthen families, and improve outcomes across the board.
As we approach Father’s Day, this conversation calls us to reflect more deeply on how we engage and empower NICU dads. Their role is essential. Their emotions matter. Their voices deserve to be heard. And they, too, must be supported from day one—not as visitors, but as essential members of their baby’s care team.
To our NICU families—thank you for being here. May you leave this episode feeling seen, encouraged, and reminded that you are never alone.
To NICU professionals—thank you for the care you give and the compassion you lead with. May this conversation inspire deeper connection, greater awareness, and an even stronger commitment to showing up for the families you serve.
And finally, heartfelt thanks to Dr. Hynan for his vulnerability, his wisdom, and his unwavering dedication to NICU families everywhere.
Because no one should walk the NICU journey alone.
Until next time—stay strong, stay compassionate, stay kind, and keep leading with love.
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