Some of the ways Children's Hospital is family friendly include shower, laundry, and breast-feeding rooms, a large family room for parties, and a reclining chair in every room enabling parents to be with their child 24 hours a day, if they wish. Therapeutic play intervention, for instance, is available for children who will experience a procedure, or to explain what is going to happen to mommy or to a little brother who is in the hospital. To try to help foster a sense of consistency and continuity, parents are encouraged to do many of the routine things they would do for their child at home. Depending on the unit, this could include feeding, changing diapers, or playing with their child. However, parents are never asked to do any medical procedures, especially those that will result in pain.
Education is another area where the family is heavily involved.
Nurses spend time helping families understand the disease and the importance of treatment. Knowing they are comfortable, for example, giving their child's chemotherapy medications once they are discharged from the hospital, also cuts down on our anxiety when we send that child home. Another item of importance is sibling visits, which are often allowed after a previsit with a child life specialist. Kangaroo Care started in Bogota, Columbia, due to a shortage of equipment and incubators to care for stable but small infants in the 1980s. It's important to make them feel comfortable with their child.