Introduction
Welcome to the Empowering NICU Parents’ Podcast!
Our podcast is dedicated to supporting, educating, and empowering parents navigating the challenges of having a baby in the NICU.
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
Episode Sponsors
Dr. Brown’s Medical
Dr. Brown’s Medical strives to deliver valuable infant feeding products and programs to support parents and professionals in providing positive feeding experiences for the infants in their care. Traditional feeding products and practices in the NICU are inconsistent and can result in poor feeding outcomes.
Dr. Brown’s® unique Dr. Brown’s® Zero-Resistance™; nipples with reliable flow rates; and The Infant-Driven Feeding™ are evidence-based, standard-of-care practices that improve infant feeding outcomes.
The team at Dr. Brown’s Medical is available to provide support for you and your team to help achieve best-practice results. They provide 4 free webinars every year on various infant feeding topics and offer continuing education hours for Nurses, Occupational Therapists, and Speech-language Pathologists.
To learn more or speak with Dr. Brown’s Medical team, click HERE.
Solly Baby
Solly Baby creates some of the most comfortable and breathable baby wraps available. Made from a lightweight, silky-soft fabric, their wraps provide a custom, secure fit that keeps your baby close while staying comfortable for you.
Solly Baby wraps are hip-healthy certified and designed to evenly distribute your baby’s weight across your upper body, helping reduce strain on your shoulders and back so you can comfortably hold your baby for longer periods of time.
In addition to their wraps, Solly Baby also offers beautifully designed swaddles, sleep gowns, sleepers, knotted hats, and crib sheets — all made from the same signature fabric with just the right amount of stretch in simple, timeless patterns and prints.
Our NICU Roadmap
Our NICU Roadmap is the only NICU journal parents will need. Our journal is a great resource for NICU parents with educational content, answers to many of their questions, a full glossary plus specific areas to document their baby’s progress each day while in the NICU. Our NICU Roadmap equips parents with questions to ask their baby’s care team each day as well as a designated place to keep track of their baby’s weight, lab values, respiratory settings, feedings, and the plan of care each day. Most importantly, Our NICU Roadmap guides parents and empowers them so they can confidently become and remain an active member of their baby’s care team.
Our NICU Roadmap is available for purchase on Amazon or contact us at empoweringnicuparents@yahoo.com to order in bulk at a discounted price for your hospital or organization.
Click HERE for additional information and images of Our NICU Roadmap.
Newborn Holiday Cards
Celebrate every one of your baby’s first holidays with these beautiful, unique holiday cards. There is a card for every major and minor holiday so you will not miss capturing the perfect photo opportunity during your baby’s first year!
Each uniquely designed card is 5 x 5 and will make the perfect photo prop as you celebrate all of your baby’s first holidays! The cards are downloadable, so you can get them right away!
Episode 79
The Why Behind Empowering NICU Parents
In this episode of Empowering NICU Parents, Nicole shares a deeply personal conversation from her appearance as a guest on the NICU Today Podcast with host Martha Sharkey. Nicole reflects on how she found her way into the specialized world of neonatology, her path to becoming a Neonatal Nurse Practitioner, and the professional experiences that shaped her early understanding of the NICU.
The conversation then turns to William’s pregnancy and delivery, and the moment Nicole’s professional and personal worlds collided. After William was born and transferred to the NICU where she worked, everything shifted. Nicole entered the unit scared, fearful, vulnerable, and uncertain, her clinical confidence replaced with raw emotion. The environment she once navigated with clarity and control suddenly looked entirely different — because she was seeing it through the eyes of a mother.
She opens up about what it was like to navigate the NICU where she worked while simultaneously living the experience as a NICU parent, the complex dynamics of holding both roles, and how that reality challenged everything she thought she understood about the NICU.
Nicole shares how this experience profoundly changed her, both personally and professionally. She reflects on how becoming a NICU parent reshaped her perspective on communication, parental involvement, and the emotional weight families carry, and how it directly influenced her writing, advocacy, and the articles and publications she has contributed to since.
Through both lived experience and clinical reflection, her passion and focus have shifted toward highlighting just how critical family involvement truly is — including the role of parental presence and kangaroo care — and how these interventions can meaningfully impact both short- and long-term outcomes for babies and families.
This episode also explores why Nicole created Our NICU Roadmap: A Comprehensive NICU Journal following her family’s experience, and how that resource was born out of a desire to empower parents with knowledge, structure, and confidence during their NICU journey. Nicole discusses her work at AngelEye Health, including her involvement in developing tools and resources that support parental engagement, education, and transparency in the NICU. She also reflects on the Parent Checklist collaboration with Today Is a Good Day and NICU Alumni, and why accessible, parent-centered resources matter.
Nicole closes by sharing how William is doing today and the lessons she continues to carry with her — lessons about resilience, advocacy, presence, and the power of empowering parents as essential members of the care team. This episode offers insight, validation, and perspective for NICU parents and clinicians alike, and serves as a reminder that while the NICU journey may not unfold as expected, there is meaning, growth, and purpose that can emerge along the way.
Closing
Life’s journey does not always unfold the way we imagine it will, and sometimes it takes turns we never could have prepared for. Yet even in those moments, there is always something to learn, something to carry forward, and something that shapes who we become.
For NICU parents listening, this episode serves as a reminder that knowledge is power. You are your baby’s parent, and your voice matters. Ask questions. Ask again. Ask about skin-to-skin care. Ask about containment. Ask about your baby’s treatment plan and what comes next. Ask about the things that feel small and the things that feel overwhelming — all of it matters.
Even while a baby is in the NICU, parental presence and involvement matter more than many realize — for both baby and parent. Advocacy, engagement, and love are not secondary to medical care; they are powerful components of healing and long-term outcomes.
This conversation honors the strength of NICU babies, the courage of their families, and the dedication of the care teams who walk alongside them. It is a reminder that even in the most unexpected chapters of life, there is meaning, growth, and purpose to be found.
I encourage you to check out Today Is a Good Day and the many resources Martha and her team provide for NICU families, both in the hospital and beyond.
Also, be sure to check out the NICU Parent Quick Guide — a tool and checklist Martha and I talked about, created through a collaboration between Today Is a Good Day, NICU Alumni, and AngelEye Health.
Until next time, remember to keep going and take it one day at a time.
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