Visiting Guidelines / Illness Precautions

Dear Parents,

Congratulations on the birth of your new baby! We are excited for you and will do all that we can to support your family. Babies in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit are extremely susceptible to infections (their immune systems are weak and can ‘catch’ an illness easily if a visitor is sick). To protect your baby from being exposed, we can not allow visits by anyone who is sick or has been exposed to certain diseases.

Visitors should not enter the NICU if they have any of the following:

Respiratory flu (seasonal or H1N1)	Rash
Fever	Sore Throat
Strep Throat	Sneezing
Coughing	Open sores or impetigo
Pink Eye	Diarrhea
Vomiting	Cold sores (until dry and crusted over)
Stomach flu	Runny nose

In addition, there are some diseases that may be infectious before the person becomes sick. Visitors may not come into the NICU if they have been exposed to any of the following:

Measles (exposed within the last 21 days)
Rubella/German Measles (exposed within the last 21 days)
Chicken Pox (exposed within the last month)
Whooping Cough (exposed within the last 30 days)
Mumps (exposed within the last 26 days)
MMR Immunization (within the last 21 days)
Polio Immunization (within the last 21 days)
Chicken Pox Immunization (within the last 21 days)

To protect your baby, as well as the other babies in the nursery, we ask that you share this information with all visitors. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Thank you,
The NICU Staff