A reflection on the complicated emotions that don’t simply disappear when a baby leaves the NICU—while honoring the parents who carry them and the dedicated NICU professionals who experience the joy, challenges, heartbreak, and incredible privilege of caring for our tiniest patients and their families.
What if feeding in the NICU was about so much more than nutrition? Discover how the Infant-Driven Feeding® (IDF®) Program empowers parents, transforms the NICU experience, and creates lasting benefits for babies and families—long after discharge.
Discover the story behind the Presence Study Toolkit and how it transforms research into practical guidance for NICUs. Nicole Nyberg and Fabiana Bacchini share the passion, collaboration, and purpose behind this free resource designed to strengthen family-centered care and improve the NICU experience for babies and families.
Premature birth impacts far more than the diagnoses most commonly discussed in the NICU. Early experiences, stress, caregiving interactions, and family involvement all shape the developing brain in profound ways. This episode explores neuroprotective, family-centered care and how small, intentional choices can influence a child’s development and long-term outcomes far beyond discharge.
Introduction Welcome to the Empowering NICU Parents’ Podcast! Our podcast …
Martha Sharkey shares how an unexpected delivery at 23 weeks reshaped her family’s life, from navigating the NICU and enduring loss to building Today Is a Good Day, a nonprofit supporting NICU families. Her story shows how lived experience can grow into purpose and connection for others.
Explore the lifelong impact of premature birth—medically, developmentally, and emotionally. This episode sheds light on how early experiences shape growth beyond the NICU and empowers parents with knowledge, compassion, and hope.
Born at 21 weeks, Nash Keen is the youngest infant ever to survive. Two University of Iowa neonatologists share how culture, belief, and neonatal hemodynamics shaped his care—and what it means to see fragile babies go home after months in the NICU.
Born at just 21 weeks and 285 grams, Nash Keen defied impossible odds. In this episode, Mollie Keen shares their family’s extraordinary NICU journey—filled with fear, resilience, and hope—as Nash became the most premature baby to survive, officially recognized by Guinness World Records.
This episode explores practical strategies to support breastfeeding in the NICU, the Infant-Driven Feeding™ (IDF) Program, new research on long-term outcomes, and lessons from a successful feeding clinic—empowering parents and clinicians to create positive feeding experiences from hospital to home.
