FCC or family centered care; what is this and why is it so important?

What’s your first thought when you hear about FCC? How does it work in your countrys’ health system? Do you think there could be any improvements?

What is FCC?

Family centered care is an approach to medical care with the belief that optimal health outcomes are achieved when parents or other family members play an active role in someones’ treatment. To say it more simply; parents are the ones who affect their childs’ treatment when he is staying in hospital. But for that they should be there 24h per day.

In every country there are these special little places, where we get our habitants from; its called maternity hospital. And from time to time a premature baby is born. He/she needs to stay at the intensive care department, where they help him keeping his vital functions being stable. This little miracle is born without an immune system usually weeks too early, which means he needs to be isolated from the outer world full of bacterias and viruses.

I had the chance to work at the department for intensive care for premature babies in our country for short time. The department is small, we do not have a well developed family centered care, because for a 24h parent presence, every baby would need a room where he could stay with his parents. So the biggest problem is of course the ‘lack’ of money to build a bigger intensive department care for newborns and to employ more staff.

Why are parents so important when a newborn already has the professional team by his side 24h per day?

Parents are like natural advocates for the neonatal patient for whom the emotional, social, and developmental needs are serious and urgent. They will know and feel the best what their baby needs. Parents staying with their baby can also help families cope with the stress of having an infant in intensive care. We can’t forget that this part of life is one of the most stressful times for parents. If they stay in hospital with their baby 24h per day they could be engaged in open and honest communication with care providers; doctors, nurses and other professional workers. Many parents nationwide remain dissatisfied with opportunities for parent involvement, physician-parent communications, availability of information, and transition to home planning.

Two things remain important

Enabling and empowering. Parents become more involved in decision-making and are empowered to influence the process of their infant’s recovery. They become more confident, attached and prepared for discharge. Activities that provide them to grow confidence are holding their baby, knowing what tests have been done, bathing their infant, feeding him or breastfeeding, changing diapers, Kangaroo care, administering medications, holding the nasogastric tube, providing breast milk etc.

Many of you do not have any experiences with premature babies, but I believe you have some opinion about FCC. I would love to hear your comments below.