Interesting title, huh? You may be asking yourself, “What is a ‘snuggler scoop’? Is ‘snuggler’ even a word?” To which I will say – no, snuggler is not a word, but for the sake of the babies, bear with me; they love their snugglers.
The Snuggler Scoop is a video series I created several months back to document the ins and outs of our nurseries. As of today, the scoop has officially come back to life due to a position change on my part.
As of mid-December, I moved from the receptionist position to an infant care specialist one. In addition to this, my role as the social media manager solidified into its own weekly position routine. What does that mean? It means the Snuggler Scoop can function even better with my set of eyes in daily nursery life.
The job has been magical so far. It is such a privilege to participate in this line of work. I am excited to give you a more in-depth scoop of why we do what we do!
Now, let’s talk about an integral part of proper nursery function that I have observed already during my time as an infant care specialist.
REGISTERED NURSE WORK!
Our nurses are ultimately responsible for the well-being of our babies and proper communication with those above and below them. They do this by having a high-level view of every single baby.
See, the model of care at Maddie’s Place is different than you might expect. We are paying close attention to the way our babies interact with the world and their caregivers.
One of the ways our nurses do this is through the Hopkins Assessment/Intervention Tool. This guides nurses to look at the babies through four different psychological lenses– that being, autonomic, motor/muscle tone, state control/attention, and sensory reactivity.
Pictured is the Hopkins Tool used in our nursery. The goal is to assess where each baby is at in their regulatory levels. Let me explain.
As a healthy baby grows and develops, they are naturally able to tolerate light, sound, and other environmental factors as they come along. This is because their brains are properly regulated.
However, a baby born exposed to drugs or alcohol has a dysregulated brain, making them unable to tolerate those same factors as a healthy baby would be able to. This is why Maddie’s Place seeks to eliminate dysregulating environmental factors, such as light and sound, from the nursery as best as possible.
Doing this process daily allows our nurses to track how a baby is improving and make the necessary changes to their care should they persist in dysregulation.
To be specific, nurses are determining whether a baby needs medication one day or if a feeding change is in order. They are keeping track of all medical issues a baby might have. They are closely attending to babies with feeding tubes, or those on oxygen. All in all, they are our baby experts who use the Hopkins tool as a guide to accurately help other staff members in their care of the babies.
It’s a vital role. Our medical and clinical directors rely heavily on nurses’ eyes to inform their decisions on a larger scale.
We are blessed to have 29 nurses on staff to provide this unique care to these little ones who need it desperately. As an ICS, it is a pleasure to work side by side with the nurses under a common goal: to provide the best care possible to an overlooked population and give them opportunity for a healthy future.
Questions? Suggestions? Email me at emma.jones@maddiesplace.org
This blog was posted on February 2, 2024.