Belly & Beyond Holistic Wellness

11/18/2025

11/16/2025

11/14/2025

11/14/2025

11/14/2025

Just alittle injection 🙄

11/14/2025

A single NICU infant may be touched 20, 30, even 50 times per day, depending on their condition.
And those touches come from multiple categories of staff.

NICUs average 10–22 different staff touching a single infant per 24 hours.
(Respiratory, nursing, techs, fellows, attendings, students, transport, phlebotomy, radiology. It is never “just the nurse.”)

• 40% of hospitals operate with NICU staffing below recommended ratios.
(That’s straight from multiple state audits, including the 2024 Lehigh Valley audit.)

• Hospital-acquired infections account for 9% of all preterm infant deaths.
NICU babies are the most vulnerable population to central line infections, respiratory pathogens, and contact contamination — all directly tied to how many hands cycle through the unit.

• A 2023 multicenter NICU study showed 1 in 4 babies experienced a preventable harm event.

• Premature infants average 200+ separate handling events in the first 10 days.
That number goes up with lower gestational age and with understaffing.

• Turnover in NICU nursing is now 20–30% annually in many regions, which means
more unfamiliar staff + more agency nurses + more handoffs = higher error rates.

• Every additional staff handoff increases the odds of a medical error by up to 58%.
This is published data. Not opinion.

• NICUs routinely use trainees (residents, fellows, NPs, students). That’s not a criticism — it’s a fact. But it also multiplies the number of people performing procedures, exams, line checks, and care tasks.

Whose hands are on your baby.

https://open.substack.com/pub/abbythemidwife/p/whose-hands-are-on-your-baby-in-the?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=6ctqe7

You need to read this.

Tell me your thoughts in the comments.

11/11/2025

Please do NOT birth on your back.