Cottage Children’s Medical Center holds first reunion since pandemic
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. -
Cottage Children’s Medical Center held its Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) reunion at the Santa Barbara Zoo today.
More than 1,000 visitors came to celebrate their little ones successfully making it out of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Cottage Children's Medical Center.
This is the first time that the reunion has been held since the pandemic.
Doctor Kathy Chung has been practicing medicine for 14 years and has been working at the Cottage Neonatal ICU for 8 years.
“It's the most fulfilling thing to be able to take care of them when they're particularly vulnerable and see them recover and grow,” said Dr. Chung.
Dr. Chung explains what causes babies to be admitted to the Neonatal ICU to begin with:
“Some babies are just transitioning to learning how to breathe and to adjust to life outside of the womb. And some babies have more critical illness, such requiring a surgery or requiring a special medication,” said Dr. Chung.
Many babies are also are admitted to the NICU for prematurity.
Megan Spencer says her daughter Ocean was born 16 weeks early and spent almost 4 months in the NICU.
“Having a micro preemie especially is really hard because it's really touch and go. You don't really know what's going to happen and you hope for the best. So it was a very, very hard and very traumatic for us,” said mother Megan Spencer.
The pandemic also caused hardships for parents.
“We couldn’t be there at the same time for most of the time she was there. so it was only one person at a time,” said mother Emma Schuster.
Now Ocean is stronger than ever thanks to the high level of care and nurturing the nurses and doctors at Cottage Children’s Medical Center provides.
“When she was born so early, we wanted to give her a name that was strong and powerful and beautiful and big because she was so small,” said Ocean’s mothers Spencer and Schuster.
Parents and kids reunited with the parents and doctors that helped them during this difficult time.
The next reunion is scheduled to be held in 2024.
