Family Support Policy

Kaiser Permanente Oakland’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit exists to provide care, education, and support to hospitalized newborn infants and their parents throughout the hospitalization, as well as to provide a safe and comfortable environment during the infant’s hospital stay.

Parents are the constant in an infant’s life, and are important members of the NICU team. Parents may come and go from the unit as they desire. Parents may bring siblings into the NICU, with the following limits:

• Children should be free from infection. Children who have been exposed to chicken pox or other communicable diseases in the previous 3 weeks should NOT visit.
• Children should be prepared in advance for their visit. Children must be supervised at all times.
• If you would like to bring in more than one sibling at a time, please check with the charge nurse first to make sure it is appropriate.
• Children under 16, who are not siblings, will not be admitted to visit.

Parents may bring friends and family into the NICU to visit. Due to space restraints, one parent with one visitor at the bedside at a time.

Parents may designate four adult persons to visit when they cannot be there. These persons may be relatives or friends. The designated visitors will remain the same throughout the infant’s hospitalization. These designated visitors may come into the NICU between 10 AM and 8 PM. They will be asked to step out of the NICU during rounds or change of shift.

Health information about the infant will only be given to parents.

Parents and visitors will stay at the bedside of their baby. Because of our need to protect the privacy of all of our babies and families, visitors should not wander to other bedsides.

Visiting may be limited at times due to space and noise limitations, or during specific treatments or procedures.

Disclaimer
If you think you have a MEDICAL OR PSYCHIATRIC EMERGENCY, CALL 911 IMMEDIATELY or go to the nearest hospital. DO NOT attempt to access emergency care through this web site. An emergency medical condition is a medical or psychiatric condition that manifests itself by acute symptoms of sufficient severity (including severe pain) such that you could reasonably expect the absence of immediate medical attention to result in any of the following: serious jeopardy to your health, serious impairment to your bodily functions, or serious dysfunction of any bodily organ or part. An emergency medical condition is also "active labor," which means a labor when there is inadequate time for safe transfer to a Plan hospital (or designated hospital) before delivery or if a transfer poses a threat to the health of the member or unborn child.

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