Primary Nursing

What is a Primary Nurse?

Primary Nurses are nurses that are assigned to a patient for the entirety of their NICU stay. Typically this nurse would be assigned to a patient every time they worked. When they are off, however, the patient will just have another nurse. If your baby is going to be in the NICU for an extended stay you should really consider a primary nurse.  

What Are Some Reasons to Have a Primary Nurse?

The most important reason for a Primary nurse is Consistency of Care. Having the consistency of a primary nurse can help with all of the inconsistency in the hospital. Different residents, different attendings, different nurses every day making different decisions about care for your child. Having a primary nurse can allow for a consistent voice in a sea of different voices with different opinions of how to treat your child. 

The doctors in the NICU (especially where Aryi was) really trust the opinion of their nurses and will take into account what the nurse thinks. This can be great if you have a nurse there that knows your child and will advocate for what they need. 

Speaking of advocating for your child, a primary nurse can help you speak to the doctors if you do not agree with them or are not understanding what the doctors are saying. Nurses speak doctor, as well as normal human. 

A primary nurse is someone you can talk to about what is going on. They are someone you can lean on. 

Having a primary nurse means that the person taking care of  your child knows them. They know everything from what is causing their oxygen monitor to go off to how to get them to go to sleep. 

Your primary nurse will help you navigate things like getting ready for discharge. There is a whole list of things to check off a list like CPR training and the car seat test. 

How Many Primary Nurses Did Aryi Have?

Aryi had 2 Primary Nurses. The hospital he was at allowed a patient to have a day shift primary nurse along with a night time primary nurse. I don’t want to use their names so I will call them Day Nurse and Night Nurse. 

How Did Aryi Get His Primary Nurses?

We found Aryi’s Day Nurse first, about a month into his NICU stay. We had her one day, and I thought she was the most perfect nurse. She paid the most attention when Aryi’s oxygen monitor was going off. She would correctly determine when Aryi was just wiggling around and when he actually needed an oxygen boost. This seemed easy to me after spending 12 hours a day staring at the monitor, but some of the nurses still couldn’t seem to understand the difference between kicking and struggling to breathe. I grew to trust her very quickly and asked her to be our primary nurse the first time that Aryi had her as a nurse. At first she said she was PRN and did not think that Aryi would benefit from her as a primary. The next day, me and my husband went to her together and told her how much we liked her. She said she was ending her school soon and she would be able to pick up more shifts. She accepted and became Aryi’s first Primary Nurse. 

Next, we found Aryi’s Night Nurse. We found her late, closer to Aryi being discharged when he had about a month and a half left. By the time we found her, we were no longer worried about Aryi’s oxygen monitor. We knew he was going to be fine. He just needed to grow and get stronger. She was so helpful to us in the end trying to get Aryi home. 

Both of them were amazing Nurses and came into our lives just when we needed them. We are so thankful to them for everything they did for us. 

How Did Aryi’s Primary Nurses Affect His NICU Stay?

Aryi’s Day Nurse was AMAZING. She was so smart and knew so many things about babies, you would swear she had like 10. But she did not have any yet. I guess it was the years of taking care of NICU babies that made her so good at it. Like I said earlier, she knew exactly how to take care of Aryi and his medical needs. She also could tell what he wanted from patting him to get him to sleep to the day she brought him his first mobile. I had so much trust in her that I would allow myself to sleep in and rest when I knew she was working that day. I needed it after 12 + hours in the NICU, waking up all night to pump, and trying to feed myself and my husband. When we found her, it was like I could breathe again, I felt like I couldn’t for so long. He was ok if she was there.

When we found Aryi’s Night Nurse we were getting very close to discharge. Aryi was finally on the Vapotherm getting closer to getting rid of the oxygen. He was learning to drink. He was getting really big. The Night Nurse loved the big babies. She loved the happy endings. She loved helping to send the babies home. She helped Aryi drink all of his milk (helped me get Aryi to drink all his milk), which is something he was struggling with for a while. She taught him to sleep at night and got him on his schedule. She told us about Triple Paste, the butt paste that we swear by. She had two children and taught me many things about motherhood.