2. Catholic Medical Center is a 330 bed
community hospital in Manchester, NH
In affiliation with Children’s Hospital at
Dartmouth, Catholic Medical Center
opened the Special Care Nursery
in April 2010
3. The Mom’s Place
at CMC
•1200 Deliveries per year
•14 bed LDRP, including 2 operating rooms
•Maternal Fetal Medicine Service
•12 bed Level IIB Special Care Nursery
•2 Methadone clinics within the city
4. Our mission is to provide
individualized, high quality, tender
care to each infant and their family.
This is achieved by providing an
optimal environment for
mother/baby attachment using the
neonatal couplet care model. This
model of care assists parents in
becoming primary caretakers for
their infants with the support of
our healthcare team.
Mission Statement
11. Special Care Nursery at CMC
Patient Population in the Special Care Nursery
32 weeks or greater
Short term ventilation (< 24 hours)
CPAP, High Flow Nasal Cannula, Oxygen Hood
Infants requiring “special care” (i.e. NAS, long term
antibiotics, etc.)
Retro transfers from tertiary care facilities
12. What is Neonatal Couplet Care?
Care provided to
a postpartum
mother in the
same room as
Neonatal
Intensive Care is
provided to the
infant.
13. What is Neonatal Couplet Care?
Families stay together from admission to discharge
Minimized separation
Early skin-to-skin contact
Early parental involvement
Parents feel confident to become primary caregivers-
comfortable at discharge
Parent’s presence enables more prompt
responses/tuning in on the signals of the infant
14. How does it “really” work??
1. Infant born on The Mom’s Place (LDRP)
2. Stabilized in delivery room
3. Infant placed on mom or dad’s chest and transferred to the
Special Care Nursery into a Family Care Suite (FCS)
4. SCN nurse assumes care for the Couplet (post partum care
and neonatal care)
5. Couplet remains in FCS until mom is discharged
6. Infant transferred to SCN room until ready to go home
15. 32 week infant stabilized in delivery room and skin-to-skin within ½
hour
16. 33 week twins born by c-section and placed
skin-to-skin in the OR
19. •Parents are encouraged to stay with
their babies 24/7 (when possible)
•Our philosophy is to have nurses act
as “coaches” to parents
•Parents feel confident to become
primary caregivers so they are
comfortable at discharge
21. Benefits of Neonatal Couplet Care
•Increases exclusive breastfeeding
•Increased amounts and durations of kangaroo care
•Parents are more prepared at discharge
•High job satisfaction ratings (NDNQI survey)
•Decreased staff turn over
•Decreased Length of Stay for NAS babies