Taking your baby home: What to expect on discharge day

If your baby was born premature, or early, you aren’t alone: About one in 10 babies in the United States are “preemies,” born before week 37, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These babies are more likely to experience health problems and may have to spend time in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).

Naturally, taking a NICU baby home can seem daunting for new parents. While those worries are warranted, rest assured, those feelings often pass. 

“I think for most parents, even though there may be some trepidation at the start, they embrace taking on their parenting roles in the end,” says Suzanne Lopez, MD, a neonatologist at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. “I tell them: ‘Don’t look at the monitors, look at the baby.’ And then their focus goes back to their child.”  

Use these tips to prepare, both emotionally and physically, for your baby’s transition home. 

Before Discharge

Take over the parenting responsibilities when you can.

Yes, your child is in excellent hands with the NICU staff, but don’t underestimate your own abilities. The more baby care tasks you can take on during this time—like changing a diaper or doing skin-to-skin contact—the more comfortable you’ll feel taking your child out of the NICU later on. “If you let a parent do all the things they would normally do at home, they start to have a normal experience, and it becomes less anxiety-provoking,” says Dr. Lopez. 

Learn what equipment your child will need—and how to use it.

All NICU babies must be able to do five things to be discharged from the NICU, according to Dr. Lopez: eat, pee, poop, breathe, and keep up their temperature. If your child needs long-term help doing one of these tasks, whether with medications, a machine, or a surgical device, you (and all of your child’s other caretakers) must be trained on how to use it. 

For example, says Dr. Lopez, some NICU babies have trouble getting enough nutrients and will need to be fed through a gastrostomy tube; in this case, a doctor or nurse will teach you how to feed your child through the tube, how to clean the device, and more. 

On Discharge Day

Take note of tests being performed. 

Before babies can leave the NICU, they usually need to have a handful of health tests, including a hearing screening, which can detect hearing loss in infants, and a car seat test, which helps determine whether your baby can safely stay upright in a seated position. Note the results and ask your doctor about next steps, if any.  

Work with a discharge coordinator.

Many large hospitals and medical centers will have their own discharge planners and case managers. These staff members will arrange the follow-up appointments that your child may need with other doctors, like pediatric cardiologists and gastroenterologists, says Dr. Lopez. You’ll also likely get a summary of how your baby was cared for in the NICU, too. 

After Discharge

Take your baby to follow-up appointments.

After babies are discharged from the NICU, they’ll often be transitioned to the care of a pediatrician, who will start seeing them for regular well-child visits (i.e., routine doctor’s appointments at specific ages), says Dr. Lopez.

Keep your baby (relatively) isolated.

Discharge day is always a celebration for families, says Dr. Lopez. But that doesn’t mean you should literally throw a party. “Everyone is going to want to see [the baby], but I try to discourage parents from taking their child out to big gatherings [for at least six months], especially during the winter cold and flu season,” she says. 

Dr. Lopez also tells parents to make sure that the rest of their family members—including grandparents, other caregivers, and everyone else at home—have been vaccinated for diseases like whooping cough, measles, mumps and rubella, and more.