A stay in the NICU can leave siblings on the outside, and a team of nurses in Connecticut wanted to change that.
Four nurses at Connecticut Children’s Hospital created a coloring book called A Message to My Sibling to help brothers and sisters stay connected to newborns receiving intensive hospital care, according to WTNH.
The project focuses on siblings waiting at home while families spend weeks or even months traveling back and forth to the hospital after a baby is born prematurely or critically ill. For young children, it can be hard to understand why their parents are away so often or why their new baby sibling cannot come home.
The idea grew from what the nurses saw firsthand, including one family that traveled long distances to visit their daughter Anna, who was born at 31 weeks and weighed 2 pounds, 13 ounces.
The nurses spent years developing the book with illustrator Cheri Lenhow. The finished book introduces children to the NICU in what WTNH described as a gentle, age appropriate way. It includes coloring pages, explanations of medical equipment, and spaces for older siblings to write messages or draw pictures for their baby brother or sister.
“It was really about introducing these things without scaring them, because it can be scary to see this equipment,” Lenhow said.
One feature lets children create artwork and notes that can be displayed in their sibling’s hospital room.
“We included pages where they can draw pics of themselves, or things that they enjoy, and they can hang them up on the walls of the NICU,” Lenhow explained.
Nurse Kelsey MarcAurele said the impact of a NICU admission reaches far beyond the baby.
“NICU admission doesn’t just affect the baby; it affects the entire family: siblings, parents, grandparents, everyone feels that,” MarcAurele said.
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