Blog
Micro Preemies Give Back to the NICU Where Life Started as They Approach Graduation Weekend
AUSTIN, Texas, May 23, 2019 – As graduation season nears, Hand to Hold went back to where it all started: St. David’s Medical Center (SDMC). Born two days apart, Jackson Kelley and twins Luke and Gabe DeYoung spent months in the SDMC Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).
Why I Started Therapy: Real Stories from Real NICU and Bereaved Parents
Oftentimes the emotional impact of a NICU stay can surface weeks, months or even years later after your baby is discharged. Emotions can quickly turn from joy and gratitude to anger and resentment and back again. It's important for parents and caregivers of...
When Support Is All Around, Yet No Where to Be Found
I felt like this recent Hand to Hold article about mental health and the effect of the NICU on the family was speaking directly to me. Only now am I beginning to realize the emotional support I craved and needed during my initial days, and in the years after, as a...
Why I’m Open About My Mental Health Challenges After the NICU
As I rapidly approach my 50s, I find I don’t care quite as much as I once did about what other people think of me. It is one of the few things about getting older that I appreciate. It is a refreshing change to be comfortable in my own skin. Once I would have been...
Mindfulness & Self-Compassion for NICU Parents
By Nandini Narayanan, LCSW, C-IAYT, 500RYT, Reiki, NICU Parent True compassion always includes ourselves. –Jack Kornfield Since the birth of our micro preemie twelve years ago at 25 weeks, 3 days, weighing 1 pound, 10 ounces, mindfulness and self-compassion are...
PTSD and NICU Parents
When my son, Theo, was born at 27 weeks in 2014, I went from blissfully pregnant to survival mode in a matter of hours. For six-and-a-half months I sat by Theo’s incubator, and later crib, bonding with him as best I could while he was hooked up to monitors,...
Mental Health in the NICU: Barriers to Treatment & the Effect on the Whole Family
Any NICU parent will tell you that having a baby in the NICU is a stressful situation. And the research is behind us on that claim. Research has shown that NICU parents experience higher levels of stress than typical parents of healthy, term babies. When it comes...
Give a Meaningful Gift This Mother’s Day
"You are the mother everyone wishes they had." Mother's Day can be an especially emotional time for NICU parents, parents of preemies, and those who have suffered a loss. Some will be celebrating at home with their newly-discharged baby. Some are years out from...
Emerging from Prognosis
I understand that doctors try to give families an honest warning in a prognosis, yet it only gives us one potential outcome. Parents share the discrepancies between prognosis and reality all the time. We learn later that prognosis will not give us the big picture...
Thrown in Deep, Far from the Edge: Emerging as Parents of Micro Preemies
When I was pregnant, I remember reading about classes for new parents-to-be. There were options like Caring for Your Newborn, or Caring for your Newborn Twins, or Breastfeeding 101. I definitely don’t remember any offerings called Caring for your Micro Preemies....
#BornInaHurry: Help Bring Kacey Musgraves to Austin
Help Hand to Hold bring recent Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Kasey Musgraves to Austin! Why Kacey Musgraves? In her hit song "Slow Burn," Musgraves alludes to her own premature delivery: Born in a hurry Always late Haven’t been early since ’88...