FOR FAMILIES

You Are Part of Your Baby’s Neuroprotective Care

Your baby knows your presence. Your voice, touch, scent, and comfort are familiar in a world that may feel very different from home. As you begin to recognize your baby’s cues and responses, you become an important partner in supporting comfort, connection, and development.

Neuroprotective care recognizes families as part of the care team—not simply visitors.

YOUR PRESENCE MATTERS

Your presence is an important part of your baby’s experience in the NICU. Sitting quietly nearby, speaking or reading softly, offering a steady hand, participating in care when appropriate, or simply being present can provide meaningful connection.

Connection can happen in many ways.

LEARNING YOUR BABY’S CUES

Your baby communicates in many ways. Changes in breathing, movement, muscle tone, facial expression, color, wakefulness, and the ability to settle can help show when your baby is comfortable, becoming stressed, or needs time to recover.

As you spend time together, you and the NICU team can learn your baby’s individual cues and what helps your baby feel supported.

You and the NICU team can learn your baby’s language together.

STOP • PAUSE • GO

STOP — Notice what your baby is telling you.

PAUSE — Give your baby time and support when needed.

GO — Continue when your baby shows readiness.

This simple approach can help you and your baby’s care team respond to your baby’s cues and allow time for comfort, stability, and recovery.

TOUCH WITH PURPOSE

Your touch can be a powerful source of comfort and connection. Some babies may respond better to a still, steady hand or gentle containment than to repeated stroking, especially when they are very premature, medically fragile, or showing signs of stress.

Watch your baby’s cues and work with the care team to learn what kinds of touch your baby responds to best.

Every Touch Is Brain Care.

SKIN-TO-SKIN CONNECTION

When medically appropriate, skin-to-skin care can support your baby’s comfort, physiologic stability, sleep, feeding, and connection with you. Your baby’s care team can help determine when skin-to-skin care is safe and how to make the transition as supportive as possible.

Holding your baby can be care.

PROTECTING SLEEP & RECOVERY

Sleep and recovery are important parts of your baby’s development. After feeding, handling, procedures, or other activity, your baby may need quiet time to settle and recover.

Sometimes loving your baby means interacting. Sometimes it means protecting the quiet.

Rest is not time when nothing is happening. Development is happening.

FEEDING IS MORE THAN VOLUME

Feeding is a developmental process. Your baby is learning to coordinate breathing, sucking, swallowing, and staying organized and comfortable during feeding.

Your baby’s cues can help guide when to begin, when to slow down or pause, and when your baby may be finished. Feeding is not only about how much your baby takes—it is also about supporting a safe, positive experience.

A positive feeding experience matters too.

YOUR VOICE MATTERS

Your baby can become familiar with your voice. Talking, reading, telling stories, or singing softly can provide connection and a familiar presence during the NICU journey.

Follow your baby’s cues. There may be times when your baby is ready for interaction and other times when quiet and rest are what your baby needs most.

Your baby needs you.

CARE CAN BE A PARTNERSHIP

There may be times when one person provides care while another helps support your baby with containment, positioning, comfort, or simply by watching and responding to your baby’s cues.

When appropriate, you may be able to take that supportive role. Your baby’s care team can show you how to participate in a way that feels comfortable and safe.

Sometimes your hands can be the second set of hands.

PARTNER WITH YOUR BABY’S TEAM

Ask questions. Share what you notice about your baby. Tell the team what seems to help your baby settle, what your baby enjoys, and what seems difficult. Ask how you can participate in care and what you can do to support your baby.

You bring something to the care team that no one else can—the growing knowledge of your own baby.

Your observations matter. Your questions matter. Your presence matters.

YOU ARE NOT JUST VISITING

You are your baby’s family. The NICU team brings clinical knowledge and experience, and you bring a relationship with your baby that is uniquely yours.

As your confidence grows, your role may grow too—from being present and learning your baby’s cues to participating in care, comforting your baby, and preparing to continue that care at home.

You are part of your baby’s neuroprotective care.

NEUROPROTECTIVE CARE CONTINUES BEYOND THE NICU

The skills you develop in the NICU—recognizing your baby’s cues, supporting comfort and regulation, protecting sleep, responding during feeding, and building connection—can continue as your baby grows.

Neuroprotective care does not end at discharge. The setting changes, but your relationship with your baby continues.

Protecting Brains. Supporting Families. Transforming Futures.