Kangaroo care with hospitalized foster baby

[IncompetentHousewife]

My husband and I received our foster care license just this week, and already we have been contacted about fostering a newborn baby boy.

We know very few details and I'm feeling so many emotions right now, so for now I'll try to ask my questions as they come to me. The baby swallowed meconium and had low oxygen at birth, so he's expected to remain in the hospital a couple more weeks. We haven't met him yet. His worker says it's likely rights will be terminated, so we would be interested in adopting him.

My question is if anyone has experience with providing kangaroo care (skin-to-skin contact) with a foster baby while in the hospital. I'm wondering if this is something I'm likely to get resistance about from the hospital staff or if they'll acknowledge how valuable skin-to-skin is and help me with it.

I've never had a child in the NICU, so I wonder what else I should know. Mentally I'm approaching this as I would if this were my bio child.

[Polliwog]

I can't see it being a problem once the child is legally placed with you. They mignt not place him with you until he's discharged from the hospital, though. I've heard that before.

[elmh23]

Don't know anything about foster parenting or the NICU really (just what I've read since my niece was in the NICU for a long time) but not even every NICU really values kangaroo care, so while you might face reservations about it from the staff, it could possibly just be the hospital versus you being a foster parent.

[lauren]

You might be able to do some research about the hospital the baby is staying in. Many of them feel proud of their responsiveness to NICU babies and may even promote things like kangaroo care on their website.

[RiverandJulie]

We adopted a baby boy who was in the NICU for 6 weeks. (10 weeks preemie). We met him in teh NICU when he was 5 weeks old. We spent a week there with him until he went home. The NICU staff taught us about Kangaroo care and encouraged it. They had the hanging sheet-things so I could wall myself off if I felt like I needed it. BUt I just wore a zip up hoodie and snuggled him in there. I had to work around the wires, but I really felt it was great for him and for me, with bonding and growth. kangaroo care continued at home.

As preemies, they really need the warmth, so sometimes skin-skin was the best thing to calm him down.

[Tigerchild]

I think you work on getting the caseworker on your side first. S/he can expedite things with the hospital staff if it's a go. Legally, they're not going to let you just walk in and even visit, much less kangaroo care without some sort of release. Our hospital is way progressive about kangaroo care and preemie/NICU care--but for various reasons, their security is tight. And they're not going to let a non guardian or responsible party do that without a clear release to do so.

So I'd worry first about the caseworker, then the hospital.

[Polliwog]

Which circles the conversation back to the likelihood that the family will not have the child officially placed with them until the child is almost ready to be released. Social services usually won't pay the daily stipend/mileage/whatever until they have to. They might be able to get visits approved, though.