Mother Knows Best

Hospitals bring 'mothering' into the room with new accommodations.

ByABC News
July 3, 2007, 11:50 AM

July 3, 2007 — -- Baby Lucy Cook came into the world 16 weeks early, weighing less than 2 pounds and in need of a lot of help.

Like many premature babies across the country, she is cared for in a cutting-edge but crowded neonatal intensive care unit packed with nurses, equipment and lots of noise that could affect her stress level.

"When there is a lot of sound going on, you can really see it on her monitor. You can see that her heart is affected," baby Lucy's mother, Stephanie Cook, told ABC News. "There is just too much going on, so we have to get her back in bed where we can control the environment."

At Phoenix Children's Hospital, doctors said the distractions have a real impact, and the hospital is developing rooms that more closely mimic the experience of how babies live in the womb as these babies receive medical care and grow after their early birth.

"Certainly one of the things we have learned over time is really the importance of being able to create an individualized environment for each baby," said Lori Vasquez at Phoenix Children's Hospital.

Until now, they've improvised, so some new mothers placed blankets over incubators to try to reclaim some closeness. But it's a poor substitute for the womb, where a mother's heartbeat and voice are the most prominent stimulants, and harsh light and sound are muffled.

"We're talking about learning how to give back to the child what they're expecting in the intrauterine environment," said neonatalogist Dr. Keith Meredith. "We'll never be as good at it as nature, because that's just the way that is, but we can get closer than we do today."

Phoenix Children's Hospital is part of a new neonatal care movement to provide quiet, fully equipped private rooms for premature babies instead of one large room full of incubators.

Instead, it devotes an entire wing of individual rooms where babies are surrounded by no one but their mothers.

These "womb rooms" are designed to be private and peaceful. Everything from the floors to the ceiling tile is made of sound absorbent material to provide a closer mother-child experience.