CONNECT - Read to Me! Quarterly

Providing Comfort and Joy:

Parents Tracy and Chris Fancy
read “Goodnight Moon” to
daughter Sadie in the NICU

Reading to Babies in the IWK Health Centre’s NICU

The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit can be a very stressful place for parents. They often aren't able to hold and cuddle their baby when they are in the NICU and the medical equipment can be overwhelming. New research shows that reading to babies in the NICU can benefit both parents and baby.

At the IWK Health Centre, we encourage families to take their yellow bag of books with them when they visit their baby in the NICU. IWK Read to Me! Coordinator, Tracy Lowe tells parents “Just snuggle down close to the incubator and read. The baby will enjoy hearing your voice and feeling your closeness.”

As well, Read to Me! has an extra supply of books on the unit for families whose baby is in the NICU for an extended stay. Reading, talking and singing to a baby who is in an incubator can help develop a strong emotional bond between parent and child.

Newborn vital signs such as heart rates and breathing rates have been proven to stabilize at the sound of a parent’s voice.

“We recognize how important it is for babies to hear their mom’s and dad’s voices,” says Clinical Nurse Specialist Darlene Inglis, “In the NICU we continue to work hard at decreasing the background noise so that the baby can readily hear their mom’s and dad’s voices.”

Read to Me! spokesperson and children’s author Sheree Fitch has said “In the moment of telling a story there is the creation of a safe place.” For parents with a baby in the NICU, books can be a wonderful vehicle to transport them from the world of the hospital into the joyful “safe place” of a story.