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Showers benefit preemie families

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By YVETTE C. HAMMETT

yhammett@tampatrib.com

Published: December 2, 2009

BRANDON - When nurse Cindy Collins worked about 23 years ago to help set up the neonatal intensive care unit at Brandon Regional Hospital, she could not have known her own newborn would need care there just two years later.

She learned quickly that numerous perils can befall families trying to traverse the maze of needs and services that come along with the birth of a premature baby.

It was a turning point in her career and in the lives of dozens of families who face the same types of issues every month.

Today, Collins heads up the HUG program - or Help U Grow, an intervention of sorts for families whose babies end up in the specialized intensive care unit and could use someone to help them sort through the emotional, medical and everyday issues that come with having a baby weeks or months before its expected arrival.

HUG is an arm of the county's Healthy Start Coalition, which has teamed with the March of Dimes and the Mommies Little Miracles parent group to provide baby showers this past month for families whose babies are in one of the area's NICUs.

The last of four baby showers took place Nov. 24 at Brandon Regional Hospital.

"Families of preemies need a lot of family support and community support because it's such a roller coaster of emotions they are feeling" when a baby is born unexpectedly in the NICU, said Sara Tindale, the family resource coordinator for HUG at Brandon.

"We go over with them a lot of information from the March of Dimes."

Families learn parenting skills, are directed to services for developmental issues or mental health issues and can find help with transportation or care-giving.

The showers are held during November because it is designated as Prematurity Awareness Month by the March of Dimes. They are simply a way to let families know there are community services available to them, said Mary Scourtes, with Healthy Start.

Charleston Shaw of Lakeland, whose baby girl, Cali, was born in Brandon's NICU recently, attended the special shower in Brandon.

"I think it's great they're giving out all this information. I've even found out about a parenting class," Shaw said, before picking up several gifts, including a set of bottles and a baby book.

Some families of preemies need even more.

"Emotionally, you're isolated and then when you go home you become even more isolated," Collins said. HUG provides services to counteract that, she said. "We screen all the babies for both medical risks and psycho-social risks," she said.

HUG is sponsors through Health Start and the Children's Board of Hillsborough County.

ABOUT HEALTHY START

Healthy Start was established by the 1991 Florida Legislature to help reduce Florida's high infant mortality and improve the lives of pregnant women.

Since Healthy Start began, Hillsborough County has seen:

•A 30 percent decrease in infant mortality - the sharpest decline in the past 25 years - fully three times the rate of the previous eight years.

•An 11 percent decrease in very low birth weight babies (less than 5.5 pounds)

•A 37 percent decrease in repeat births among teenagers

•A 28 percent decrease in infants who die within the first 28 days of life

ABOUT HUG

Registered NICU nurse Cindy Collins, of Brandon, started Help U Grow 2 1/2 years ago after realizing there was such a need in the community.

HUG provides family resource coordinators for five NICU hospitals in the Tampa Bay region.

Collins follows babies' progress for one year after they leave the NICU.

HUG is a branch of Healthy Start.

Reporter Yvette C. Hammett can be reached at (813) 627-4763.

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