Kiara Nowlin Barry speaks with Monique Nowlin about her personal experience as a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) parent after her daughter was born at 29 weeks.
She provides practical advice on how family and friends can best support loved ones facing extended hospital stays.
Key Advice for Supporters
- Optimal Communication: Use short, sweet text messages like “Thinking of you” or “I’m so sorry you’re going through this.” Avoid open-ended questions like “How are you?” or “What happened?” as these can be overwhelming and emotional for the parents to answer.
- Practical Assistance: Coordinate meal deliveries through services like DoorDash or Uber Eats. To avoid being intrusive, work with a close family member (like a grandparent) who has insight into the family’s daily needs to organize things like meal trains.
- Respect Boundaries: Be mindful of strict hospital visitor restrictions. Instead of asking to visit or just showing up, let the parents know you’d love to see them whenever they are ready for visitors.
- Avoid “At Least” Phrases: Don’t try to find silver linings immediately with phrases like “At least they’re in good hands.” Instead, be willing to “sit in the grief” and discomfort with the parents, letting them lead the way on when to celebrate good news.
- Long-Term Support: Continue reaching out even after the patient is discharged. The trauma and medical challenges (like follow-up therapies) often continue long after the initial crisis has passed.
The central message is to “just reach out” in a way that doesn’t require an immediate response or action from the person in the hospital, letting them know they have a “village” behind them.
TV broadcast week beginning 01/18/26
Producer: George Alger
Sponsor: NONPROFIT FIRE, Google Ad Grants Community Building NonProfitFire.org
Sponsor: SKYWORKS MARKETING, Performance Advertising SkyworksMarketing.com