Addressing Food Insecurity Among NICU Parents

Submitted by a Taskforce Member:

Patients can be transferred to our Level IV NICU resulting in parents and families traveling long distances to be at their baby’s bedside. Social Services can assist with on campus housing for those who live > 50 miles away but there is often a waiting list. Campus housing has a kitchen, but families may not have transportation to get to the grocery store.

We expect parents to room-in prior to discharge, but no food is allowed in the NICU. Our home ventilator trial training is 24/7 x 10-14 days in a hospital room, resulting in many barriers to food access. 

How is your unit addressing food insecurity among NICU parents and families? How would you handle the situation shared by your fellow Taskforce member?

Responses:

• Our hospital provides 2 trays per meal, 3 times a day for the parent/support person. This cost is something the hospital takes on as part of the infants stay.

• We offer complimentary snacks, drinks and frozen meals in our parent lounge area funded by our NICU grants/donations and donated by Ronald McDonald/Cultivate Food Rescue.

• Our social worker provides gift cards to the hospital cafeteria (provided by the hospital) and gift cards for grocery stores & gas stations (funded by the hospital foundation) – per her discretion/needs of the family.

• Parents (especially moms) can order meals under the baby in the NICU from food services and it’s billed to insurance

• Last year, our hospital foundation built and continues to support a ROBUST family lounge in our inner city 60-bed Level III NICU… It is stocked, cleaned, and managed by volunteers during the day but available to families 24/7… Families often donate back to the foundation for this initiative specifically, out of gratitude for the access that they had during admission.

Resources:

• • Addressing Food Insecurity through Hospital-Community Partnerships in a Changing Policy Landscape, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Program

  • Building Pediatrician Capacity to Address Food Insecurity, Webinar series by the AAP, CHA, Share Our Strength, and Food Research Action Council (FRAC); See Children’s Hospitals Lead the Charge Against Food Insecurity

  • Food as Medicine Collaborative’s Food Pharmacy Toolkit, Resources for starting clinic-based programs

  • Inpatient Food Insecurity: A Call for Recognition, Investigation, and Intervention, Laura M. Plencner, MD

  • Home Food Delivery to Address Food Insecurity Following Hospital Discharge, Denver Health Program