Emily Podcast
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Mary Coughlin: [00:00:00] I am so ridiculously excited to have Emily Hills on the podcast today.
Em and I go way back to good golly. I don't even remember when we first met, but let's just kick it off. And, share a little bit about how did you arrive at your current role as co founder of this incredible organization, Sensory Beginnings.
Emily Hills: Oh, bless you and just say it's it's such a big honor to be on this podcast. So thank you so much. So how did it all come about? well, you're going to chat to Lindsay, Lindsay was my lecturer when I was a pediatric OT hundreds of years ago, learning about sensory integration.
And she just blew me away with her knowledge about neurobiology. And how she really explained your, your senses. And we became friends and I was always her, junior, her sidekick And then one day we're sitting around my kitchen table.
planning this, great course and just sort of thrashing out ideas. And this company called me up and they were [00:01:00] like, We would love it if you would deliver a course about babies for us. And they're like, do you have one? And I'm nothing, if not a good blagger.
So I was like, yeah, we totally got one. And you know what? We're good to go. So book us.
Lord, what have you said? Anyway, we we sort of did it on a wing and a prayer and we, we delivered this two day course and we had this really positive, really supportive feedback. And then we were like, Hmm, maybe we're onto something here, but also why are we doing this for other people? Why don't we do this for ourselves?
And so we created this, this course. And originally in all honesty, it was written for occupational therapists. And it just grew because people were really passionate about it and everybody wanted to become more sensory informed. We've had swimming teachers take the course. We had a lady who worked for a travel company who wanted to make the children's center more sensory informed.
So it's been really a [00:02:00] whole diverse population. And pre COVID, I never know how we ever did this, but people would just find us and say, come and deliver your course. So we went round the world having the best time. So we went to Peru and Brazil and India. And we never ever knew how to run a business or knew how to advertise ourselves.
And then COVID hit and suddenly we're like, huh. And so we. everything online and it sort of, it grew from that and that the neonatal market really became more aware of us from, from that.
Mary Coughlin: Yeah. Oh my gosh. Well, that is a fantastic story. And it is cool to hear you say, COVID hit and then you're kind of like, now what?
And you've got to pivot because I remember feeling the very same way. All of my education was in person, speaking gigs and, invites to different hospitals. And so you really had to go, Oh my gosh, [00:03:00] I either need to pivot or this baby's over.
Emily Hills: Exactly. And actually Mary, poor Lindsay, I would always book where we were going and Lindsay would be like, where are we off to now?
And we booked, Dubai to India. And this is how bad I am at business. I'd filled the contract in wrong. So we had to deliver another course in India for free. And then I was like, Lindsay, it'd be a really good idea. If we go to Mary Coughlin's conference in Portugal from India. And so we went from there to Portugal and COVID hit, do you remember?
Trying to get home and then close the door.
Mary Coughlin: Yeah, I do remember that. In fact, I remember being in the airport, going home and looking around and this is how oblivious I was at the time. You know, who watches news when you're like in the throes of trying to put a conference on and all this other kind of stuff.
And all of these people are at the airport and A lot of them were wearing masks, and I'm thinking, oh my gosh, how dramatic, what the heck is going on here? Until I get home and I'm like, [00:04:00] what? The world is shut down?
Emily Hills: Exactly. So it was that mad dash home. And that was the last time we, we did the Science and Souls.
Mary Coughlin: It was right. And now we're really excited to reestablish it. We're going to be doing our very first one here in the United States and Boston in October and Emily and Lindsay will be featured speakers, which were wicked, wicked, wicked, excited about. So, yeah, yeah. I mean, what an excellent and exciting adventure.
Emily Hills: I know. Do you know, if nothing else, it is such an adventure and the thing that I love most, I love that the course is online because it's accessible to people around the world that wouldn't access it normally. But I love meeting people and I love learning from them. And my passion is always neonatal care.
And so I love meeting my nursing colleagues and going like, Oh, you do it that way. Oh, we're doing it differently on our [00:05:00] and stealing everybody. It is. Is
Mary Coughlin: that my favorite thing? It's curating. It's curating. Curating. Yes. Well, you're so funny because you like beautifully segued into my next question,
So your passion, and your mission. And and I, just to kind of like step in with my experience, it, it feels like for me, at least it's always evolving and growing and expanding with your passion and your mission. Do you find a similar example and can you kind of, kind of describe how are you living it?
Do you
Emily Hills: know what it's it's an interesting thing so that our whole mission is just to help the world become more sensory informed. And Lindsay's always taught me that we're nothing without our senses and your sensations going to guide your relationships, your regulation. And your development.
And when you start talking about it the whole time, you're like, everybody knows this. And so what [00:06:00] really always intrigues me is, is when people, when people don't, when it's not, and I, we we were in a long drive back because the train system let us down. And so I was busy texting nurses who've taken our course and just asking them.
You know, you recommended it to your friend. Why, why did you recommend it? What was it about it? And I got this beautiful message back going like, you know, no one tells us this stuff. We keep little people alive, but no one tells us about the future about, about how we can do it better. And she's like, we're good people.
She's talking about the nurses. And she's like, if you is how to do it better. We will do it better, but tell us. And I was like, I mean, I have no idea how to keep a little person alive, and it's really interesting when I'm looking at doing like a parent led skin to skin transfer and I'll get there at the cot side and I'll be like, okay, we've got to do love and hugs.
And you're going to hold your baby for a long time. Have you been to the toilet and have you got water? Do I [00:07:00] look at those lines? Not in the slightest. And then I see colleagues go along and be like, Emily, hold your horses. Let's organize the hell out of this first. We look at it differently.
Mary Coughlin: Yeah, we do.
But that's the beauty of, of what we do as a healthcare team. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. We all get to excel in our own skills, but we can also cross pollinate and share our knowledge.
Emily Hills: And that's another massive thing that we've been learning a lot is, yeah, you're only as good as your team. And so, you know, that whole focus a long time, you know, was the baby.
And we were like, we're there for the baby. And then we went, Oh, wait one minute. They've actually got families. We better look after them because. They're going to be with them for the rest of their lives. And then recently we've gone like, huh, maybe there are people in this place who've also got to look after the parents and the families.
And you remember, we went to Graven's last year, Mary, and we, there was an amazing speaker and I cannot remember her [00:08:00] name, but she showed us that video that said, where are you on the line? Are you below the line or above the line? And if you're above the line, you can be creative and take on new ideas and Be a leader. And if you're below the line, there's not enough space. There's not enough time. There's not enough room to grow. You're just broken. Yeah. Lindsay and I watched that and Lindsay went, Hmm, I think the whole of the United Kingdom might be below the line, but I looked at my colleagues and the ones, do you know, you used to call them Barbara's long, long time ago.
You know, the ones who can't, who just like can't do it anymore, who've become really task orientated is they're just saving themselves because they're below the line. And so a big part of my job is to, to be with my team and to support my team and to remember. the things they do well and to say thank you, those things.
Mary Coughlin: Yeah. I think [00:09:00] what you're describing is, that idea of practicing trauma stewardship that the barbers in the world and all of the other folks that are below the line they are good people. They've beautiful hearts, but they have They've gotten swallowed up and, and they've gotten lost, and just overwhelmed by not just the work.
I mean, I think the work and the bearing witness piece becomes the straw that breaks the camel's back because there's that whole other backstory, right? The systems, the economics, all of those other elements of life that can over time become traumatizing, right? And overwhelming to us.
Emily Hills: Absolutely. And all your work, I mean, we've only recently realized that maybe people are working in, in trauma environments, maybe witnessing life and death every day.
Isn't just like an everyday job, but I look at, yeah. Do we provide [00:10:00] the right amount of support for my team? No. And it's not that I love my team, but I just think, I think we need to do more.
Mary Coughlin: Yeah. Well, you know, and I think you bring up this idea, you don't know what you don't know. And so you don't know where the gaps are and, and, and how you can help.
Emily Hills: Yeah. And you don't know how you're, handling can impact. And I got to give an example today. I was I walked past a room and I'm usually super loving and super calm and I must've walked and opened the door and just went given an angry face because the poor doctor turned around to me and she went, I asked for help.
I'm here. I'm here. She's like, I know this is wrong. And I asked for help because she was trying to take bloods and this baby was crying. But but when I was there in the extra pair of hands, she was just like, thank you. Cause it's really hard to do all these things on your own and comfort a baby.
So it takes a team to think, okay, if we're going to improve the sensory environment, and if we're going to [00:11:00] improve pain management, then we need to do this as a team. And every area you choose, it can't just be one hero on their own. And when it not just giving the angry face, why it's not happening, you know, why, why didn't that happen?
And what can I do to help? Right.
Mary Coughlin: Well I was just noticing earlier your, your tagline on your email address nurture with knowledge. And
Emily Hills: what's that? Thank you.
Mary Coughlin: Oh my gosh. Are you kidding me? I love it. And Yeah, well, you know, I was like, I do love it. And of course, originally, when I first looked at it, I was like, yes, people need to know more.
And you kind of talked about that, when we first came on the call about you think everybody knows this stuff, right? You think everybody knows this sensory stuff. And and they don't. And I think it's because it's, your senses are so this a little pun here, but not really intended, but like [00:12:00] in your face, right?
I mean, it's like ubiquitous like the air, having, Sensory input that sometimes it it falls to the wayside of our awareness of how powerful that part of who we are is and so when I looked at your tagline nurture with knowledge It was like, yeah, sure, empirical knowledge, but also, I think what you got one of the cool things that I've observed in the work that you do is you also help folks open the door beyond the empirical, which is always fun, but into that personal knowledge, like what are what are the sensory experiences that you have?
That you can connect with that then help open your heart a little bit more about how important this may be for this tiny little person or this family at large. And just kind of really expanding what it is to understand fully the breadth of a nurturing experience [00:13:00] mediated by the senses. Which is every single experience.
Emily Hills: Exactly. Exactly. It's everything. Absolutely everything. Yeah. And actually in the courses, it is really nice when we go through each sense at a time and you're thinking about yourself and, how you process, I don't know, tactile information and what about your family members. And you're right when you can relate it to the person who's attending and they go.
That's why I cut all the labels out of my clothes, or that's why my kids can no longer eat with me when they're doing exams because I make too much noise, or whatever it is. We talk a lot about how your stress is going to make you hear and feel your senses more. Looking at the end of the shift, what do you like?
If it was a stressful shift, did you hear that alarm go for 10 more hours than normal or whatever compared to the day where you felt supported and it was chill? So your, your senses, you process it really depending [00:14:00] on the levels of stress you're in. And I think a lot of the time, originally we were focusing so much on the sensory input of the baby, which is so important because we have.
flipped their environment completely. And it's really naive of us to think if we do that, that it's not going to impact on your brain because it really does. But the sensory processing needs of the parents a parent's incredibly stressed as well. we want to support that connection and skin to skin, but for some families, we're going to have to grade that and go slowly.
And it's not just like everybody needs to hold their baby for 24 hours a day. It's like Let's think about you and think about what's going to work. Right now, because there is no baby without you. And there is, it's a dyad, triad, whatever you want to call it, a baby family come together.
So we have to look at their unique sensory needs.
Mary Coughlin: Right. Right. I mean, this isn't like the prescription, Here do this and everything will be fine because then [00:15:00] you've got folks fretting. Am I doing it right? Am I doing it? How is this supposed to happen? You just have to be you and it will turn out.
Okay, follow your own wisdom, but I don't think we give it. Yeah. Parents, certainly enough credit for that or validation that there's no way you can't do this right because you're the parent, And I also just wanted to touch upon how you just mentioned that state of stress can really disrupt or maybe escalate the sensitivities that our sensory system may have. And so, as a nurse or a therapist or a physician, really understanding that, me coming in and saying, you need to hold your baby. This way or that way, but not paying attention to the fact that they're, eyes are bugging out of their head and they, they're kind of pale.
Is something going on, Yeah.
Emily Hills: Right? No, you're absolutely right.
And I think that's the big thing as well is, is that whole nonverbal [00:16:00] cue piece, which was super brilliant at looking at the babies, but your nonverbal cues are going to stay with you for the rest of your life. So also let's look at that poor little mom who we've just put a baby on because if she's got wide eyes and losing her skin color and holding her breath, probably the whole situation is not going to work.
Yeah. Yeah. The mom goes, my baby didn't like it when I held them and that's never the case. That's all we've done. We didn't prepare the sensory environment. We didn't prepare the sensory transfer. We didn't help you regulate first because that co regulation on your senses is going to matter.
And every time you hold your baby matters. So we've got to get it right.
Mary Coughlin: Yeah, I love how you're really making me think differently and deeper about these encounters. That again, I mentioned being a prescription, but these aren't just even tasks and we can reduce so much of the human experience to a laundry list of tasks.
[00:17:00] But when we do that, we create. These disconnections, right? as you mentioned with the parent, not really being prepared from a sensory perspective, which I mean, the connection between your emotional state and your sensory state, how do you, how do you understand that?
How do you attune to it? How do you regulate it?
Emily Hills: So, if we were to look at our new sense on the block, which has been around for a long time, but already recently talking about it, interoception. Yes. Yes. Just going to be your, am I hungry? Am I thirsty? Do I need to have a bowel movement? All of that. It's also your emotional state and people use different things to help calm and regulate.
So some people will do those grounding. What can I smell? What can I see? Some people will do breathing. Some people need to listen to music or audibles. Vision is incredibly [00:18:00] calming. And I know people get upset with people being on their phones at the cot side, but if that helps a parent chill the hell out.
What's wrong? If we're asked to sit there for 24 hours, does it matter? I'm not monitoring their brain. I want the baby. So we just need everybody to be calm. So if they use vision to chill out, but to think rather than just, we're very good at thinking of the practical activities like, you know, bathroom, water expressed, all the things, actually that emotional regulation and breathing and settling and thinking about your interoception.
before that little person comes on you, it's going to help them feel exactly what you're feeling and just be more relaxed as well. You'll get Lizzie waffling for hours on your vagal tone, polyvagal theory. Oh,
Mary Coughlin: excellent. I'll make a note of that for when, for when I have my interview with her. I love that stuff too, but [00:19:00] yeah.
I think that there's a lot of resonance and synchrony maybe with the work that you guys do around sensory, sensory experiences and sensory awareness and sensory regulation, and the, and the work that I do around trauma and trauma informed care because when we are in a traumatic state, and using some of the cool definitions about talking about trauma being the residue left over after exposure to heightened levels of toxic stress.
And you, you touched upon how stress can disrupt or alter our sensory perceptivity and sensitivity. How does this idea of trauma and trauma informed care and, and how has your expertise now as a trauma informed professional informed the work that you're doing or influenced the work that you're doing.
Emily Hills: Yeah, Mary, I think actually, it's the one thing I was thinking about driving back. I was like, what's Mary [00:20:00] going to ask me? I think the trauma, just the awareness of the trauma informed model has changed my practice a lot because as a. you know, new into neonatal therapy, you kind of, you want to be like hands on, you want to be doing so that people think you're very important and there.
Otherwise they'll be like, that's a waste of space. I'll get rid of the OT. So I was doing stuff. And then I, and then I did my NIDCAP training and they were like, get your hands out and just watch. The, the trauma informed model is, is really made me think about the parents, really made me think about the parents and to know that actually some of the best therapy I can provide is making a cup of tea and listening.
And that whole empathetic listening piece. And I don't know if you know this, but in the UK, when we share a cup of tea, we release oxytocin. So it. It might work the same in the
Mary Coughlin: UK or anybody who has a cup
Emily Hills: of tea. [00:21:00] Gotta love, maybe it'll work in Boston. You gotta love your tea with a little bit of milk in it.
Apparently I'm joking. But it's, it's really, it's sort of an, and the older and wiser you get, you go like, that's okay. That's okay. Just to be with that person and to hear their story rather than going like. I must do something,
Mary Coughlin: well, you just made me think about the listening piece that you talked about is really about creating that safe space, right. And, and fostering a rapport that then opens the door for that person to share their story.
Emily Hills: Yeah, Exactly. Because they've got to feel like, okay, and it's interesting because you're there for a bit and they'll, I don't know, they're asking all about my family or just chatting away and then it gives them a chance to breathe and then, then everything comes out.
I don't know. It doesn't just like, Oh, I'm sitting here next to you and now I'll tell you my life story. Wow. Like it takes time. Yeah.
Mary Coughlin: Well, I mean, I think you have to earn the privilege. [00:22:00] Yeah. And, and I think actually I was, I just had an interview a little while ago with Dr Heather Forkey and she and I were talking about that epistemic dilemma where healthcare and I think, you At least here in the US, there is a tendency, I don't want to blanket everybody, but there's a tendency to think I'm the expert, I deserve your story.
I have no rapport with you, but I've got a white coat on and a stethoscope around my neck. Alright, come on, give it up, give it up, give it up, give it up. And we don't realize that we haven't earned the right to the story.
Emily Hills: Yeah, that's really good way of looking at it, actually. Just why should we?
Mary Coughlin: I think about myself, with healthcare professionals or with anybody, to be honest, I'll tell you, I'm fine. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Hit the road. You have not impressed me yet. Yeah, yes. And I think that's because we, we have minimized, I'm not sure that's the right word, Emily, but [00:23:00] I think it at large in healthcare, we've minimized the human to human rapport that you show up and you're a condition, you're a diagnosis.
In the NICU, you're a 24 weeker, you are the diaphragmatic hernia. And I will respond to that hernia with the full force of all of my attention but the human being that's wrapped around that or the family that is, encompassing that little human that's not my job. That's somebody else's job.
Somebody else will, will take on that role. And so we've fragmented our humanity, I think. In
Emily Hills: healthcare. No. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Which is kind of depressing. Sorry. Yes. It's just thinking, yeah, how we move forward and go back to, individualizing and providing relationship based care, because actually that's all humans need at the end of the day.
I mean, yes, you need good healthcare, but I mean, you need relationships. That's what we, we're [00:24:00] not meant to do this on our own.
Mary Coughlin: No, we're not. And I think I mean, I'm kind of evolving to that place in the language of trauma and trauma informed care, where I think the language needs to kind of grow with the evolution and and some of the language that I'm seeing percolate is about healing centered.
So it's, trauma informed, but healing centered and, listening to you, share your journey and your passion, which is so wicked palpable. I absolutely love it. you can just feel the healer in you, sharing this journey, sharing your passion about really trying to help others.
Step into the highest expression of the work that they can do, the being that they can be in service to other.
Emily Hills: Isn't it interesting though, like it takes, it takes us kind of like an entire career to go less is probably more. I know. That's the weirdest thing. [00:25:00] And to be able to sit in that space I am terrible for filling a silence and my psychology colleagues have just gone like, come on, don't fill every space.
And it's been amazing, and sometimes I have to count But it is really important just to sit, be okay to sit with someone in their trauma.
Mary Coughlin: And it's hard. as we sit here chatting about it, there's no implication here that it's easy at all. It is probably one of the hardest things you're going to do.
Finding that place where you will eventually get comfortable being uncomfortable.
Emily Hills: Yeah, because I think, wow. Like we go into healthcare because we want to fix, like I said, you give me a problem, I'm going to try and fix it for you. And it was actually, it was my son said the other day, he was just like, sometimes I just need you to listen.
So I'm just telling you this bit's hard. Just listen and stop coming up with solutions. So I was like, Huh. Okay. I'm going to try and practice what I do at work at home as well. [00:26:00] Yeah.
Mary Coughlin: Well, I mean, and that's the other piece of this, right? I mean, the people that are at home are also human beings. So gee willikers, right?
It might work, I love that you, said that about your son, because one of the things that I've been really trying to focus on is evolving in my mothering role. And how do you mother? and this might feel like a departure from trauma informed care, but it really isn't, because mothering them, I want to fix it too.
I want to make everything easy for them. And, and there's a lot of, of their journey that I can't. And inside, I'm dying, because you can't fix it you have to let them do it. And similarly, finding those places in our clinical work, There's a balance between empowering parents to step up and into their role as parents and another part where you want to make it nice and easy for them because they've [00:27:00] been having such a hard time and, and really seeing, that there is a balance and knowing when to go which way.
Or the other way is a really important part of practicing your wisdom as a healthcare professional,
Emily Hills: Absolutely. And that whole thing, because we're always trying to be strength based and we're always trying to look where does that baby shine and share it. But at the same time, sometimes when there's terrible diagnosis.
If I go in the whole time again, like you did this and this and this and like, well, this isn't matching up with what everyone's saying. So we've got to find where you shine, but also be able to listen to, this is, this is not what you signed up to. And this is hard.
Mary Coughlin: Exactly. Exactly. And that those two things can exist simultaneously.
Yeah.
Emily Hills: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Mary Coughlin: And, and I think that can make us really crazy too, because we love linear, we love black and white, we like it to be natural, we like it to be,
Emily Hills: right? [00:28:00] SOP, a protocol, a guideline, but the whole thing just collapses without those three things.
Mary Coughlin: Oh my gosh, you're so right. Well, let me ask you this question then. How has this incredible journey Expanded or impacted your understanding of of the importance of a trauma informed sensory sensitive perspective in health and even human services.
Emily Hills: Do you know gosh, where can I start with this one?
Probably my best teacher would still always be Lindsay. She looks at things with such a clear, beautiful way. And I just go, huh. And I take the things that she says and I look at them at work and it just makes you slow down and think about the relationship and think about.
Every human who's in that, family team, because we all come with our [00:29:00] own sensory cues. And so we can change a dynamic like that. And just an example I watch my colleagues in the morning when they're getting who's working in what room. And if you see the person who's.
Face, his whole proprioception is scowled and angry. You're like, I don't want to work with her today. I picked on your sensory cues that they're not going to be great. And if I have to be in the room with you for 12 hours, it's going to finish me. You give up these little sensory clues the whole time.
And so no one is in, in isolation. And so. we see the baby and the family and the team, and we look at their stress and their trauma and their sensation. And then we, we change and we co regulate and we always co regulate with each other. And we're not expecting everybody.
to be in the green zone. And it would be absolutely no help to my nursing colleagues. If we hit emergency and they went and we're in a green zone. But we want to [00:30:00] support for the most part of the day, everyone's to be in that, in that good place.
So, we can grow brains so that we can grow tiny humans. Right.
Mary Coughlin: Right. And, and also preserve and protect the, the wholeness and integrity and capacity of the adults that are in that space too. I'm not at my best nursing when I am freaking out. when I'm feeling overwhelmed and sometimes I can't see that about myself.
So it would be really helpful to have someone else in the room, a loving, compassionate, kind colleague who could figure out what's the best way to let Mary know that she's not at her best. She's not in the green zone right now. Maybe we need to make her a cup of tea nurturing each other as
Emily Hills: well.
So important. And I think knowing that that's important to recognize when your colleagues are going, below the line or, need that break and need the tea and it's okay for them to go and step outside. Yes.
Mary Coughlin: Yeah. Create the space to allow that. That doesn't [00:31:00] make me feel guilty, but makes me feel loved.
That it's okay to, to be in that place because that's another piece of it. Kind of all of these taboo things in healthcare. And, and in nursing and I'm not sure if it's in therapy as well, but sometimes it's a badge of honor. I haven't peed all day. And I, I didn't take my lunch break.
because I'm that dedicated. you're actually kind of crazy, but we think that that's okay.
Emily Hills: Yeah. So not okay. Or like you've left every night, three hours after you went to no guys. Yeah.
Mary Coughlin: You don't get a gold star for that one. No, no. And so we really need to pay attention to how we can shift that focus so that, in caring for yourself.
You're able to then bring that better self
Emily Hills: I was just thinking of an example of trying to really just say thank you to the team and just to be grateful. And we had a hospital I worked at before to where I am now. We had [00:32:00] a gratitude tree and I love that gratitude tree because at the end of the shift, you could just write a message.
Just to say thank you. And so, you know how I like to steal ideas. So we've stolen the idea and we have a cheap version. On my new hospital. We have the Tree of Joy, but the Tree of Joy is lovely because you, you can just say, you did a brilliant job today and I saw you because it doesn't matter if you are a hundred or, or you know, two, everybody likes to be told they're doing a good job.
Yeah. And so just to say, to say thank you and just to you're appreciated and valued and I see you. Really matters to quick boy, Amazon, everybody loves it.
Mary Coughlin: Excellent. Excellent. Well, it sounds awesome and it sounds fun too. that's the other piece of it. Particularly, when we're doing work that can be so heartbreaking and, and soul draining to be able to celebrate each other's excellence and giving.
[00:33:00] compassion in that way just sounds absolutely wonderful. It actually sounds like caring out loud, right? So I'm going to ask you What does it mean to Emily Hills to care out loud?
Emily Hills: Yeah, it means to say, I see you and I recognize this and to care out loud is to just say, I see how hard this is.
And I'm sorry, I can't make it better, but I am here with you and what can I get you for now, or to care out loud is to say you did an amazing job taking those bloods. And I know it was hard, but you really, you shunted. So, and just to say, you know, you to remind people, people want to hear. They want to hear that they're doing okay, and they want thank you.
And it doesn't matter how old you are, and it doesn't matter if it's the parents, the baby, because the baby also needs to know they've done a good job as well. For your colleagues, we all, all need to hear it. And I always think this is [00:34:00] a bit of a digression, but you're amazing. It was not yours, but Kimberly Novad, who was on your podcast.
Who is probably one of my most favorite people in the whole world to ever hear speak because she's amazing. Her words just sort of stayed with me Even though she had a job, a house and a family, the neonatal unit was the single hardest thing she ever, ever had to do.
And I think about the majority of the families that we serve don't have that. I mean, they really don't. We're in inner city London. And so to care out loud is to go. This is tough. This has not been an easy ride and it's going to be up and down, but we're going to do everything we can to, to be there with you.
And what can we do to make this better? And it is thinking about those little things. What can we do to make it better? And again, just to give you another Lindsay story. we went to Graven's conference last year and we must have sat through [00:35:00] three or four randomized controlled trials that said, families are a good idea.
Another randomized controlled trials, parents should be included. And Lindsay, who doesn't work in the neonatal unit, sort of like what the hell is going on in there? Like, we. So guys don't need to do any more randomized control trials, probably just pay the parents. If they're the biggest single influence on the baby's outcomes, just stop it and pay them.
And because it's often a financial thing that stopped parents being present. So game over. We don't need to just make the next shiny object. We just fund the parents to be present because we need them to be there. Yeah. Oh my God.
Mary Coughlin: that's exactly it. That's exactly it.
Oh, well that might be the answer to the next question, but like, let's just give it a shot. Okay. What is one nugget of wisdom or insight that you have gained over your career thus far that you would like to share with the world?
Emily Hills: Yeah. A hundred percent. It's a fam. 100 [00:36:00] percent because you can be the best nurse, best OT, best doctor in the world.
We are one little moment that's going to last a lifetime and the single biggest influence, the single biggest continuum will be their family, whatever the family looks like. So it is probably the biggest mistake we've ever made in healthcare, separating babies from their families. And we'll look back and we'll be horrified at what we did.
Really horrified. It'll be like the Harlow's monkeys will be like, can you believe people did that? And I think if we don't start talking about it and saying it's wrong, then we don't start changing it. And I also don't think it's okay to say my unit doesn't have parents. Well, why? That's on you. So, you need to work it out.
you don't just accept it and walk away from that. You change the culture of your unit. And if it's a financial thing, you raise money to support those families. And if it's a knowledge thing, you let people know. And if it's an attitude thing, you model and show parents what they can [00:37:00] do.
Because they neuroprotector. Amen,
Mary Coughlin: sister! Amen! Oh my gosh. If you want to hear more of this incredibly passionate, fun, energetic woman, make sure you come to Boston in October to the fourth annual Trauma Informed Developmental Care Conference. I'll share some more information down below. Emily, I love you.
You are the absolute best. Thank you.
Emily Hills: Oh, Mary, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Mary Coughlin: Oh my goodness gracious.
