Nursery Set To Open At Sanford Hospital

Eleven weeks ago Jamie Salmonson had her daughter, Frankie, at 32 weeks and at the time Sanford Medical Center didn’t accept babies born before 34 weeks so she was referred to U of M.

“She had to be in the regular nursery that’s all they had available. She wasn’t able to be in the room with me she had to be in the nursery for around the clock care from nurses and hospital staff,” said Salmonson. “If they would’ve had this in place already she would’ve been in one of these rooms and I could’ve stayed with her.”

The Sanford Bemidji Medical Center hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony for the grand opening of its new nursery. There’s been an increase with infants needing a longer stay and the facility will provide newborns with extra care.

“We have been noticing an increasing trend of infants that are requiring a longer length of stay in our special care nursery, which are infants that need respiratory support or feeding issues that sort of thing,” said Director of Women’s and Children Services Lisa Johnson.

Some of the infants who’ll stay in the nursery are due to substance expose pregnancies because their mothers used illicit drugs or even legal drugs but the nursery isn’t exclusive to them.

“We needed more space and individualized patient rooms was key to the healing environment for these kids,” said Johnson.

The 4,800 square foot facility is located on the third floor and has 10 individual patient rooms for ill newborns, 1 procedure room and 1 room for well babies and discharge readiness.

“Each room will be private, so there’s a space for the moms to be here and the dad and family members and they can come at anytime and be a part of baby’s care,” said Catelyn Tingelstad, registered nurse.

The panda warmers in the rooms are for less critical infants and the giraffe beds are for the more critical infants. At times when parents can’t be with their babies volunteers  come in and rock them.

“Over the holidays we did three evenings a week,” said Cheryl Yarnott, volunteer. “We rock from four to eight, so we’re great rockers; we rock New Year’s Eve here.”

Each baby born at Sanford for the year will receive a sleep sack as part of the Safe Sleep initiative to practice safe sleeping habits.

“Our winters are cold and we want our babies to be nice and warm when they go home,” said Volunteer Services Manager Kari Knudson.

They’ll finish setting up the rooms on Monday and Tuesday the babies will move in.