The Zaky - A Comforting Hand for Your NICU Baby

To this day one of the hardest things for me in having a NICU baby was not being able to stay with her and watch over her 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

We had a 2-year-old daughter who also needed our care and attention, so could visit for some time during the day, but had to leave her behind in the care of others in the ICN.

One of the best ideas that I have found for helping support a NICU baby and support the NICU parent is the Zaky ergodynamic hand pillow. The Zaky Infant Pillow is a way to simulate mother's or father's hand to provide comfort to your NICU baby when you are not able to do so.

Uses for the Zaky
By mimicking the shape, weight and touch of a human hand, the Zaky is able to provide comfort, support and a sense of security to NICU babies. The Zaky can also be used in the NICU to assist with positioning the babies (see image above).

The Zaky has been used to care for NICU Babies by mothers, fathers and family members, neonatologists, pediatricians, surgeons, obgyns, nurses, physical & occupational therapists, infant massage therapists, developmental specialists & ergonomists. The Zaky has been used in NICUs since 2001.

The Zaky
The Zaky is now available on Amazon in different hands and in different colors for you to get for your NICU Baby or give to your favorite NICU parent. Click on the image or the text link to learn more about the Zaky.

Right Handed Zaky

The Zaky Positioning Pillow - Right Hand

Left Handed Zaky

The Zaky Positioning Pillow - Left Hand

Pink Zaky

The Zaky Bonding Hand - Pink

Blue Zaky

The Zaky Bonding Hand - Blue

More on the Zaky
Dyer KA. The Zaky - A Bonding Hand from Zakeez inc. Squidoo.com
Dyer KA. Leave a Zaky hand with Your NICU Baby - Providing Comfort When You are Not There. July 2007. NICU Parent Support Blog.

More on Remembering out NICU Experience
Dyer KA. March 2008. An Easter Healing Blessing in the Intensive Care Nursery. NICU Parent Support Blog.
Dyer KA. March 2008. Creating a Circle of Healing and Support. NICU Parent Support Blog.

Photo Source: Zakeez.

Teaching Students to Write Stories out of NICU Experiences and Devastation

I have always been a believer in learning from the losses and the challenges that one faces in life and then using those experiences to help others facing similar crises, but are earlier in the process.

Kate Hopper has taken her own experiences as a NICU parent to a new level. She used her own NICU story of a preterm birth due to preeclampsia and the stories of other NICU parents and loss.

I was very impressed with her blog entry on heartbreak and hoping that I read this week. She shares her lesson plans to include two stories of heartbreak with her students in her "Mother Words" course at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis.

Her selections for the week included Susan Ito’s "Samuel" and Suzanne Kamata's "You’re So Lucky." Kate writes that she "chose these pieces to spark discussion about point of view, emotional distance, and writing about heartbreak." Her goal in sharing the stories was to teach her students how to write "heartbreak without sentimentality, craft stories out of devastation."

Learning from NICU Experiences
In the graduate course that I taught last Spring on Grieving Family Systems, I had my graduate students read the formal research papers that I had written on Identifying, Understanding and Working with Grieving Parents in the NICU to give them the perspective of grief in the NICU parents. One of my students was a former NICU nurse, who found the information invaluable.

The older I get, the more that I believe we are given these experiences to learn from and then to turn around and teach others from our losses. Perhaps this is one of the better ways of making meaning from the loss.

Sources:
Hopper K. Heartbreak and Hoping. Mother Words: Mother's Who Write Blog. July 25, 2007.
Dyer KA. Identifying, Understanding, and Working with Grieving Parents in the NICU, Part II: Strategies. Neonatal Network. June/July 2005; 24: 27-40.
Dyer KA. Identifying, Understanding, and Working with Grieving Parents in the NICU, Part I: Identifying and Understanding Loss and the Grief Response. Neonatal Network. May/June 2005; 24: 35-46.



Photo Source: Nadya Smolskaya Paper Work. Permission to Use.

PBS Special – Born Too Soon: Premature Births on the Rise

Why does the United States have so many babies who are born too soon?

Why does the United states have the highest rate of premature births in any of the developed nations of the world?

These are some of the perplexing questions the show QUEST* set out to answer.

At the time of the show’s production, QUEST’s Coordinating Producer, Amy Miller was 28 weeks pregnant with twins. Carrying multiples she is at a higher risk for her pregnancy, including possibly delivering her twins early, or preterm. (See the Quest blog for updates on her condition)

The QUEST team met with some of the San Francisco Bay Area researchers who are working in the field of neonatology to discover the reasons for the high rate of preterm births. They also explored some of the technology, research and cutting-edge medical procedures used to care for the most vulnerable newborns.

You can watch the Born Too Soon: Premature Births on the Rise program through the link below, or visit their website.

More NICU Photos:
Additional Photos from the series are available for viewing in Flickr, as you go behind the scenes with the production team, filming in a neonatal nursery.

• Separate Slides:
  http://www.flickr.com/photos/kqedquest/sets/72157600909152531
• Slide Show:
  http://www.flickr.com/photos/kqedquest/sets/72157600909152531/show

More about QUEST
KQED’s QUEST is a new multimedia series that looks at the people behind San Francisco Bay Area science and environmental issues. The program also explores how the work of these people is changing the way we live. QUEST is a production of KQED.

QUEST Television airs every Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. PST on KQED 9, KQED HD, and in vivid high definition on Comcast 709.

Sources:
QUEST. Born Too Soon: Preterm Births on the Rise. July 24, 2007. http://www.kqed.org/quest/television/view/465
Miller, A. Born Too Soon: Preterm Births on the Rise. QUEST Science Blog. July 24, 2007. http://www.kqed.org/quest/blog

Photo Source: Born Too Soon. Quest. 2007.