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Utah hospital adds bedside cameras to NICU so families can check on loved ones

Posted at 8:03 PM, Mar 08, 2017
and last updated 2017-03-08 22:03:20-05

OREM, Utah -- Timpanogos Regional Hospital is giving parents who have a newborn in the Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit as much comfort as possible during a stressful time.

The hospital applied for a $25,000 grant through the American Nurses Credentialing Center to buy a bedside camera system for its NICU, so parents could login via their mobile devices to watch their preemie without always physically being at the NICU.

Parents Michaela and Zach Evans were some of the first to benefit from the new camera system. They had their son, Zaden, at only 29 weeks. He has been at Timpanogos Regional Hospital’s NICU for five weeks.

“I'm not able to be here all the time, so to be able to just check in and see him just kind of relaxes the ‘mom worry heart’ that you have all the time,” Michaela Evans said.

Zach Evans said the nurses make a difficult time happier.

“The nurses can write us little notes about Zaden; they write as if it was Zaden talking to us, and that's kind of fun,” Zach Evans said.

The cameras are especially convenient for grandparents who struggle to visit the NICU, military families, and siblings who are too young to go inside the NICU for fear of spreading illnesses that newborns are more susceptible to picking up.

“They can check on their baby anytime, day or night,” said NICU nurse Brooke Fonohema. “A lot of times they'll wake up in the middle of the night, check on their babies then too.”

The hospital has 16 cameras but hopes to get 24 total, which would be enough for one camera for each bed.