Yamile Jackson CARE OUTLOUD
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[00:00:00] In this episode of Care Out Loud, we are honored to welcome Dr. Yamile Jackson, a trailblazer in the world of trauma informed care and family integrated practices. As the brilliant mind behind the Zaki, Dr. Jackson's expertise in ergonomics and safety engineering has revolutionized the way we approach infant neuroprotective care.
Her commitment to holistic non pharmacologic interventions, including skin to skins, slash kangaroo care and innovative sleep and pain management techniques has touched countless lives. Beyond her groundbreaking work, Dr. Jackson is a dedicated philanthropist, published author, and award winning engineer with a heart as big as her vision.
She's also the founder of Kangaroo Care Day. May 15th, a day dedicated to celebrating the profound bond between parents and their little ones. Join us as we delve into her inspiring journey, exploring the science, soul and compassion that [00:01:00] drives her to make a difference every day.
Mary Coughlin: I am so wicked excited about today's guest. Yamile Jackson is a really good friend of mine. We've known each other for a long time. She's done incredible work and I'm so In really impacting and transforming the experience of care in the NICU through her own lived experience as a NICU parent. And so without further ado, I'm going to turn the Jamiele and just say, can you give us a little bit of a backstory of how did you arrive at your current position?
Yamile Jackson: Thank you so much for inviting me. I've, watch your episodes. And I'm so excited to be one of them and part of it. So thank you for inviting me. My, my journey I think it started when I was born in Colombia, where kangaroo care started. And I was a little girl and I heard about kangaroo care.
I moved [00:02:00] to to the U. S. Yeah, when I was 21 to finish my engineering school, I wanted to do my PhD and I achieved it before Zachary was born. I have a PhD in ergonomics and safety engineering, and I worked in industry for about 10 years. I was doing project management, engineering management, and risk management for oil and gas and engineering construction here in Houston.
Then I had Zach and Zach was born a preemie when I didn't even know that the NICU existed. And he was born at 900 grams, 906 grams to be exact, a 28 weeker. And I, Because I'm an engineer, I am a problem solver and I think that was a way for me to cope with the NICU is asking questions to see how I could help Zach go through the journey and also how we [00:03:00] as parents could not feel so impotent and helpless going through the NICU.
One of the questions that I asked was what is the common denominator of these babies when they grow and the nurse said they don't want to be touched and I'm Hispanic and touch has been super important for my culture and me personally. And I couldn't imagine my life without being able to touch Zachary or that he wouldn't feel my love through touch.
But most importantly, I felt that his life would be very isolating if he didn't enjoy human touch. I asked if he's because they don't develop that sense because they're so little, or is it because they learn by association, like every other human,
Mary Coughlin: right?
Yamile Jackson: And every time we touch him, it hurts.[00:04:00]
And she said, we don't know, there's no way to research it. We don't know. And I was like, okay, I need evidence of one, my baby, right? So I started touching him. The nurses taught me how to use my hands to protect his sleep to help them with containment, not to rob him, not to touch, pat him, just put my hands in there.
And I saw how they would do it with other babies as well. However I could be with my baby there all the time and do it and doing kangaroo care because I have heard about it and then I was introduced it by my by the nurses. There were other babies that they never felt nurturing touch because every time they were touched, it was because of an intervention.
The parents were not there. The. There were some parents that I was, that were three years, three hours away, some others that they couldn't come, the others that were close, but they didn't have [00:05:00] transportation, they have all kinds of reasons why they couldn't come. Three weeks after Zach was born, we had a flight in Houston that shut down the hospital.
And so touch was what helped Zachary survive. My husband got a crash course on how to bag him. And he would take turns with the staff, and I held him skin to skin as soon as we got there, which was like four hours after the power went off.
Mary Coughlin: Oh my gosh.
Yamile Jackson: And in those very, very dark hours, I made a promise to Zach that his pain and struggle to survive were not in vain.
And I would dedicate my life to helping him babies like him and families like ours. We went to a different NICU that had a different culture towards parents. They had a different culture towards developmental care, towards trauma informed care. And and so I realized that even though the hospitals were a mile away, they [00:06:00] were absolutely different.
With the way they cared for babies. Yeah.
Mary Coughlin: Yeah.
Yamile Jackson: And the families as well. So I, I made a little glove, to simulate my hands. Cause in engineering, we simulate everything. I wanted to simulate my hands to leave with Zach. I didn't know how he he knew that I was his mom.
I didn't know that he knew my scent. But I. Pretty much extrapolated the power and the superpower that my mom has with me I'm sure I can do the same with Zach, right? Just my voice would calm him. My touch would calm him. Just being there would calm him. And I was there, but who was going to be there when I wasn't there when I had to go home at night.
I made these little gloves that simulated our hands. simulated our touch. I would put it on my chest and [00:07:00] Zachary and Larry's, my husband's chest to get the scent. So Zachary would feel something familiar all night everything is about familiarity, right? You sleep better when you know where you are, when you know your surroundings, when you're not constantly changing your environment.
Mary Coughlin: So
Yamile Jackson: yeah, so I made the Zaki, then I came home and a nurse asked me if I could make them for the rest of the unit. Isn't that incredible? And I knew, mine was. It's a handmade, homemade product. So we spent three and a half years developing like the ultimate tool that would not only help babies, that it would help parents as well, like it helped me because the nurses saw how it helps Zach, but they didn't see how it helped me.
Mary Coughlin: I think it's important for folks that are listening to know how old is Zachary now? He's 23. Isn't that insane? [00:08:00] So this mission, this journey and this passion that you have has a 23 year history. Beginning with your own sweet darling son. And how has that that history impacted where you are today, how you know, so you get discharged and now you're really diving into fulfill that promise that you made to your tiny little son on that fateful evening.
How has that informed the rest of your trajectory?
Yamile Jackson: I think I think what has been important is the intention. My intention is not to have a business. My intention is to provide babies have a better future, because if we, if babies have better futures, the parents will have better futures, the community will have better futures, the teachers will have better, better time educating these kids.
Kids will [00:09:00] have a normal life and that's what we want. One of the things that happened in the NICU was that there were a lot of items. that were donated to the NICU that I used. And they were donated in memory of a baby. And it always saddened me that somebody had to die for that to be there. So what I wanted was to do it on behalf of Zach.
Yeah. I wanted to You know I wanted him to be as normal as possible, as healthy as possible, as happy as possible. And the promise that I made for Zach was really, and to this day, I think I, I am more excited now that I see the difference that we have made in. Over a million babies we have touched in the 23 years.
It's amazing.
Mary Coughlin: The incredible nobility of the work that you've been doing has been recognized by Pretty prominent [00:10:00] folks in our pop culture, in our business culture. I'd love for you to share a little bit about how you got hooked up with Oprah Winfrey and the work that you've been able to do as part of the Gates Foundation as well.
Yamile Jackson: But
Mary Coughlin: let's start with Oprah.
Yamile Jackson: Let's start with Oprah. I think the way that Oprah found us was in the NICU when we had the flood, and then we came back to the same hospital as soon as it was open. And there was a reporter from the Reader's Digest.
But but I didn't know that he did they just said he's a reporter, and they asked me that they wanted to talk to a family that went through the flood.
And I was always there. So you were easy tag. Yeah, I was there I was one of the very few that came back because the idea was that we were going home from the second hospital.
But because of complications, we asked to be returned to the first hospital. [00:11:00] And and so he wrote an article in the Reader's Digest. And then the, there is a TNT movie that was made. Inspired by that article and Zachary's story.
Mary Coughlin: Oh my God. And
Yamile Jackson: The movie is called 14 Hours and is is in TNT, it's in, actually in our website under our story and it's it's a movie made at in Hollywood, right?
Wow. Yeah. And, like they went through the ordeal of keeping the baby alive, right? When no electricity was there, but in the movie they showed me holding Zach swaddled. instead of skin to skin.
Mary Coughlin: Yeah.
Yamile Jackson: And they kept putting the baby back in the incubator, but the incubator didn't work.
So I actually held Zach on skin to skin and as soon as I put Zachary on me, he was like, super cold, obviously, from three or four hours without electricity.
My body [00:12:00] just went instant fever, but anyway, back to the movie. They made the movie and then from that movie and the article, I think and there is another documentary that they made about the flood and all that.
Then, I was in Fox and friends and then NBC, the today show, Rachel Ray all these. Amazing people that really wanted to showcase Zachary's story of survival and the work that we do to help babies like Zachary and newborn babies that arrive to a world that is stressful, right?
Mary Coughlin: Yeah.
Yamile Jackson: Oprah was doing in 2014, oh my God, 10 years ago already, she was doing a a tour, eight cities, and in each city, they would pick one person.
They divided the country into eight, eight different regions. And I was here in Houston and I get [00:13:00] this call from the producer and he says, I am a producer of a show. Can you please call me? And I'm like, No, I just know if you don't want to say who your show is and you don't know have more information.
No, but at the, then he left me a message in every phone number that I have,
Mary Coughlin: every
Yamile Jackson: email that I have. So I was like, okay, I'll talk to him. Then he says, I am a producer with the Oprah show. I'm like, Oh my God. And I was like playing it cool. I was like, Oh yeah. Oh, okay. Hi, how are you? And so he told me that I didn't know about the, that they were coming to Houston.
He said that they have a team of people looking for particular women that have had. Something bad happened to them but they took that opportunity to not only raise up, but to raise up [00:14:00] for other people, and to keep helping other people. So I said, Okay, and we had a conversation like for two hours.
And he kept asking questions. And and he said, Okay, we have a team of people. We need to pick one. And I was like, there is no way, because I know the, the type of women that are in Houston, and it was not just Houston. It was like Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, like it was a huge area and and then he called and he said, okay, you're it. I was like, no kidding. Yeah, so he came and I was super impressed because everything that I said, they had to verify it. Sure. So I said, I'm Zachary's mom. I had to show the birth certificate.
Mary Coughlin: I
Yamile Jackson: said, I have four degrees in [00:15:00] engineering.
I had to show I am married to Larry. I had to show my certificate. Marriage certificate. Everything was like verified to the team. They made a beautiful video. They they came to Houston to the Toyota Center. It was amazing meeting her, talking with her just for her to pronounce my name.
It was amazing. I had a definitely a star crash, whatever it's called.
Mary Coughlin: Oh, how could you not with her?
Yamile Jackson: Star struck. And she made the video, which is in our website, beautiful video. She also didn't show me kangarooing. Which was interesting, because I did tell the producer, I said, I have a picture, of me kangarooing, not of that day, but kangarooing.
And they didn't use it either. So that was, yeah. So to me and for the movie, I asked the producer, why didn't you show me kangarooing? [00:16:00] And she said, We had a medical consultant and he said that would never happen.
Mary Coughlin: Who was their medical consultant?
Yamile Jackson: Not only that, but part of that movie, they interviewed doctors, nurses, therapies, other parents.
The whole thing. But the writer, when he came to interview us, he did say, this is not a documentary. So we're going to change some things. And we were thinking like, it's going to be like, More dramatic. But no, the real life was more dramatic. Definitely. I guess it's because it was my skin going through it.
Mary Coughlin: I'm sure that had a factor, right? That modesty thing. But it is interesting that they had a medical consultant. It really does make you wonder. 23 years ago. So that was the two that was 2000, right?
Yamile Jackson: So Zachary was born in 2001. And the article of the Reader's [00:17:00] Digest was supposed to be in September of 2001.
But then September happened, September 11 happened.
Mary Coughlin: Yeah,
Yamile Jackson: so that was moved to April of 2002 and then the movie was made in 2005. Yeah. And that's what made me realize so that with the medical consultant, which I was like, okay, doctors have no idea what kangaroo care is. Yeah, exactly. At least not that doctor because they're, my doctors did, but not him.
Going through hospitals, looking at, trying to help with this Zaky hugs I realized that kangaroo care was not happening.
Mary Coughlin: Yeah.
Yamile Jackson: There were parents there that were there. The important thing was we need to get parents to the NICU, right? The problem is when was once we get them to the NICU, then we need to get them to kangaroo care.
But then [00:18:00] what we were doing and what, we're not looking at, okay, how long you're going to be here,
Mary Coughlin: right?
Yamile Jackson: Let's, and this is what we did with a lot of hospitals was let's try to kangaroo care for 80, 80 percent of the time that you're here, right? If a mom is there for 12 hours or for 10 hours, you can get her out to do anything you want for an hour, right?
Any activity, any volunteer, whatever. But if the mom is going to be there for an hour, don't get her in and then take her out to do scrapbooking. Or don't take her out to do something else because this mom comes and that's one of the things with the reporter of the New York magazine was that they asked me, the nurse asked me, would you like to talk to him?
Would you mind talking to him? And I told her, I said, look, I know you're, [00:19:00] very strict with visitation, somebody else cannot come, and so I told them, I said, look, I am not leaving my baby to go talk to a reporter.
If you allow him to come here. Then I'll be happy to talk to him, but I am not leaving my baby because of that. Because of him, because I'm here is to see my baby, right? And so he came to, to deliver
Mary Coughlin: him in
Yamile Jackson: and that's how, but and when we talk about compassion in the NICU, for example, we we label parents that don't come.
Parents, and we don't ask why are you not coming, right? There are so many simple things like, I don't feel welcome. In the second NICU, I, the way that I this is, [00:20:00] it shocked me so much that I remember it by letter. They said, went to welcome me in the NICU. They said, go home, rest. And we'll call you when Zach is ready to go home.
I'm like, what if I, what if Zach would, was born there? What would be my relationship with him? What would be his prognosis? If I am not welcomed in the NICU. One thing that that was important for me That I think it also set me in this path was that when Zach was born, the second day of life, I went down or up.
I was in the fifth floor, when I went up because it was the seventh floor. He was so little and I've never seen a baby that little and he was my baby. And the nurse said, would you like to hold him? [00:21:00] And I'm like, no.
And I, but I said, why? I said I heard him already so much for not giving him a healthy start. I don't want to hurt him anymore. And the nurse said, you will hurt him more if you don't hold him. And I always think, what if she would have said anything else?
Mary Coughlin: Yeah.
Yamile Jackson: If she would have said, okay, tomorrow or whenever you're ready, or, we can try another day or it anything, it wouldn't have made me clear that I am important for this baby and I can do things that medicine cannot do.
I can do magical things that nobody [00:22:00] else. in the world can do. So yeah, so that
Mary Coughlin: think of this like almost a visual, because I've heard this from other moms too, that have had birthed their babies and the babies were born prematurely and the heavy burden that the mothers bear about, feelings, the feelings of failing the child and all of those things.
guilt, right? It just, it's overwhelming. And when you were saying how she said that you will hurt him more, it felt like she immediately threw you like a lifeline, oh, absolutely. And you were able to make that connection with the truth of who you were and who you are, right? I am his mother, no matter what happened, I am his mother.
But I, We, clinicians and none of us want to hurt anybody, we really want to help, but we get sometimes bogged up in our [00:23:00] brains about what that help looks like, right? And so maybe I'm thinking, you're overwhelmed, you're overwrought. Yeah, we'll just try this tomorrow. And, not even, I only say this now because of my understanding of trauma and trauma informed care.
That in saying that. Although it's well intentioned, it just forces you. You're sliding down the side of the cliff, deeper and deeper into your own, your trauma your feelings of guilt and sorrow, and all those horrible feelings that, that flood over you. And so how, you're such a fierce advocate for developmental care, for kangaroo care, for trauma informed developmental care.
You know I'm jumping the gun on my, my, my questioning, but like, how can we help clinicians see that they are the turnkey? That bedside nurse [00:24:00] on that first encounter with mom can help that mom either step into her power or just keep sliding down the cliff.
Yamile Jackson: So I always say that a nurse can break make or break the relationship of the baby with the parents.
You either make it stronger, and you encourage parents to be there, or you just say, We'll call you when your baby's is back.
Mary Coughlin: Yeah.
Yamile Jackson: So there are a couple of things. For example, I remember going to a hospital in Barcelona. They have a NICU that is Amazing.
The top developmental care, the top kangaroo care, the top. It's amazing. The nurses are trauma informed they, the doctors are like amazing. [00:25:00] And that day that I was there, there was a mom outside. The NICU. With a 28 weeker, the baby was in an incubator and the mom was just sitting there and I was talking to the nurses and I'm like what's happening with that mom?
Because we, we are in nature, we're compassionate people, right? Everybody is, we're compassionate. There are some exceptions but when it comes to our babies, if you want to, if you see somebody hurting, you want to put your arm around them, right?
Mary Coughlin: Yes.
Yamile Jackson: Imagine if it's your baby is suffering. And so it's natural that you want to hold your baby is not a decision that we make is something that naturally we want to hold our babies. We want to protect our babies, but there's something stopping us. [00:26:00] For me was I don't want to hurt him anymore.
I already hurt him enough for not giving him a healthy start. A lot of the parents don't say why they just say, no, I'm not going to hold dads. They don't want to hold, not because they don't want to hold, but they are scared that they're going to do something with the baby that the baby's going to dislodge in when they're holding, that the baby's going to slide when they're holding, that the baby, that, they they're it's all the risk, right?
Moms are more risk seekers. Yeah. I don't care. You put him on me, I'll hold him. And I'd be, I'll do my best, after that first scare of, do you want to hold him? Dads are a little bit more risk averse. And so this mom was not holding the baby and the nurse was like, she every day we ask her, can you hold your baby?
How long do you want to hold your baby? And she's no, I'm not holding. [00:27:00] So I said, can I talk to her? And so I talked to her, I talked to her for a while. And this is what happens is that people don't take the time to really ask the questions that we need. response to, right? It was like, okay, do you want to hold?
No. Okay. I'll see you tomorrow. We'll try another time.
Mary Coughlin: Yeah.
Yamile Jackson: This mom said, eventually she said, I don't want to spoil him. I don't want him to think that I'm always going to be holding him and I don't want to spoil him. Now, it was not my place to question her, her decision.
whether you hold your baby or not, and you spoil your baby or not, that, that is not, I was not there to question it. But what I did say to her was this baby is not even born yet. He still has 12 weeks for his due [00:28:00] date. Can you hold him? And I told her what I feel about kangaroo care is that kangaroo care gave me the opportunity to finish my pregnancy.
Right to continue my pregnancy. So I told her, look, can you hold them for 12 weeks until the due date? And then you decide whether you hold them or not after that, and she did. So it's these, and there is another mom that said, after a while that I talked to her, she said, and this is like, all the reasons that and, and some people feel like that's not even logical.
But everybody has a different reason, right? Yeah. So this other mom said she wouldn't hold and she wouldn't hold and she wouldn't hold. So when I was talking to her, I asked her, There has to be a reason because naturally we want to hold our babies. We want to protect them and there is no [00:29:00] more protection from a mom to a baby than having them on the chest.
With the arms around it and, just like that, cuddling. And the mom said I had a baby before and I held him and he died. And I don't want this baby to die,
So all these reasons that people have, if we take a little bit of time asking why, instead of saying this mom doesn't want to hold or the mom that is, holding and she's falling asleep and she says, okay, I need to put the baby back and she's labeled as she doesn't want to hold.
Or she can't hold for a long time. So don't even bother. So what I wanted to do was to do a study and this comes to the Gates Foundation thing too. So I wanted to do a study of why we're not doing kangaroo care. What is the reasons from the parents? What is the reasons from the staff?
What happens with the administration? Do they know even what's happening risk [00:30:00] management? Everything. And basically from the start from the NICU, from NICU people. There were basically 3, roadblocks 1 was education and training because kangaroo care was not part of the curriculum. So any new nurse and the new.
Person new mom, new everybody pretty much comes to the NICU you without knowing what it is, what the benefits who holds how long it used to be that, the mom can only hold 1 time. During the day, or only one person could hold, or you can only hold for an hour, or all these things that who knows where they come from, because they don't come from evidence.
And so to to do it in a nice way where we don't do it in a trauma informed way. I started Kangaroo Care Day. I needed a day. And so I selected Zachary's birthday. [00:31:00] And now it's like a global movement. It's it's amazing because it's it's an opportunity not to, not only to educate about kangaroo care and increase awareness, but to celebrate everybody that is involved in kangaroo care.
And it's a happy day or happy couple of days, whatever you want to do it a month. Some people do it a month. A month. Yeah. Yeah. I'll be happy when every day is kangaroo care day. Exactly. That's the goal. The creativity of the staff, it's a, it's a happy day.
And that's what I wanted to make. It's a happy day. Kangaroo care is happy for everybody. Now the second roadblock was safety and risk. Nurses saying it is more work for me. To do kangaroo care or if, the baby's intubated, so we can't do it or dads don't want to hold.
And and then not only Okay, putting the baby on the [00:32:00] chest, but what are the reasons we're stopping kangaroo care, which is interventions, the parents falling asleep, or, getting drowsy and kangaroo care is a sleep pill.
Mary Coughlin: It is a sleep pill.
Yamile Jackson: You're awesome as a NICU mom, you're sleep deprived because you can't sleep at home.
The, you are, you're nervous. Who knows what they told you about your baby today. So you are you're stressed out. You give them a very comfortable chair. You put the baby on the chest. Your adrenaline is down. The monitors are quiet because the baby's stable. They tell you to relax because it's going to be the most beautiful time you're going to have during the NICU stay with your baby, but don't fall asleep.
It's impossible. Oxytocin is going, it's just, [00:33:00] and so I slept with Zach And waking up with Zach is a feeling that I still remember and I wanted to make a device that would allow the parents to sleep during kangaroo care because it's more beautiful for the parents then the babies.
have the best time because the mom is relaxed. And you always say you relax because the baby feels the way you feel. So there's no more relaxation that you sleeping. And the staff will know that the baby's safe and then you can do interventions during kangaroo care. You can breastfeed, you can pump, you can do an ROP exam, you can do or an ultrasound, so what I did was spend three years developing the ZakiZak, which is the [00:34:00] device for kangaroo care that is specifically hospitals where you need to do interventions, one of the things I wanted to know, was why some nurses were more willing to do kindergarten care and offer kindergarten care.
And some nurses would be like, no, I don't, we'll wait. If the baby was the same, the condition was the same. I was the same person. The baby was the same NICU, everything, but some nurses will let me and some nurses won't. So I found through all my, my, my interviewing of. Hundreds of people was that when the babies are on the bed, the nurse has all the control of the safety of this baby and they have the responsibility.
Baby's not going to fall to the floor. For example, when the, when you put the baby on the chest of the parent, then you give the control to the parent, but you keep the responsibility. [00:35:00] That's a very hard thing to ask a person to do. That you're responsible, but you have no control. So what I wanted to do with this, is give that control back to the nurse, right?
Where the mom wears the Zaki sack before even touching the baby, the nurse make sure it's in the right size. The zippers are working. And then we transfer the baby and the nurse make sure before walking away that the baby is well positioned. The zipper is closed.
Mom is comfortable and sitting or reclined mom or dad or grandparents, whoever is holding. And then she can walk away, right? We always say there are five things before you walk away. Okay. One, the zaki is in the right size, which you make sure before you move the baby.
The second is the baby's in the right position and the nurse makes sure that the baby's in the right position and [00:36:00] teaching the mom how to do it so she can also know when the baby's in the right position and what we're looking for to be developmentally appropriate. And then the third one is that the zipper is closed.
Because if the zipper is a little bit open, you always need to put a hand on the baby. The fourth is that the mom is sitting reclined and then somebody is watching. And somebody's watching is not that you're going to be two feet away, like when I was holding that, somebody has to be there to make sure the baby doesn't fall.
Is that, you round when you're like that, the nurses will know the baby's safe. And if the mom falls asleep, you don't have to stop kangaroo care. On the contrary your rates will go up everybody's happy. And then another thing was a lot of the nurses said, I can't have more than one baby on kangaroo care.
I take care of three. I have to take turns because [00:37:00] it's too much work for me. And I was like, how is it more work for you if the mom is holding the baby? And then they explain and it makes totally total sense. So the third thing that I found was the lack of analytics. If you ask anybody you should be able to know, how long are the babies doing kangaroo care, because if you're doing one hour in kangaroo care is not only the hour you're in kangaroo care, but is it 23 hours that you're not connecting with your baby, right?
Or that you're not holding. And we want that number of kangaroo care to go at least the minimum of what the WHO recommends, which is eight hours a day. But a mom cannot hold for eight hours without the help of a device like the ZakiZak, for example. And so we applied for a grant from the Gates Foundation to make an app that that would help us with analytics with kangaroo care.
The parents [00:38:00] use the mobile app to track kangaroo care and they can also track other things like feeding and we made it specifically for the NICU needs because if we do it for the NICU needs and everybody else can use it. For example, we have weight.
You can do weight before and after feeding. So you can say at this time, this much and this time, because usually the apps just say the feed, the weight for today, we can actually do at what time the baby, which, yeah, so the parents can track that. And And then, if they join a team, which is, for example, a NICU, the NICU team leader or the team leader of kangaroo care will get all the times of kangaroo care.
And we also ask the parents, how did the baby feel? What are they, how, why did the session stopped because we wanted to be more like to give [00:39:00] information to the staff that they could use to improve care, right? If 1 session stop because of heel sticks we need to train that you can do a heel stick during kangaroo care.
Mary Coughlin: That's amazing. Yeah. And that reassures clinicians, when you have that empirical data available, it helps ground clinicians and give them something that they can chew on. How can we make this better? And really, examine their own anxieties, look at now we're collecting this data.
I feel much more comfortable about getting these kangaroo sessions. In fact, I want everybody to have kangaroo sessions because I've got this growing body of data. But I do, I do love how when you were beginning to talk about some of the challenges and you talked about the paucity of evidence.
I think As clinicians, we need to really get out of our own way that there's lots of different ways of having knowledge about [00:40:00] specific phenomena and you beautifully articulated, we just know as mothers that, when our babies are suffering, when our babies are distressed when we're feeling the same way that close physical contact has such incredible physiologic benefits.
And we know that intuitively, we know that personally, that all of these other dimensions of knowing, but oftentimes we end up having to wait for the empirical evidence to catch up to what we intuitively know as the right thing to do. And so I love how you've really Incorporated that to help folks get a full picture of what do we know about the skin to skin experience?
What do we know about the value of human touch in, specifically for the developing human, but also the For the person who gave birth to that little person, right? That touch encounter, it isn't just me touching you and it's all an external [00:41:00] phenomenon. When I touch you, you're touching me,
indirectly. Totally directly. He's probably not thinking Oh, I get back up against my mom. I'm, I'm touching my mom but you're feeling that. Yes. Yeah.
Yamile Jackson: Yes. So one of the for example, when soccer is born that day that I met him I had seen him during the C section, but just for two seconds, but the day after he was born, I went to see him, and that's when the nurse said, would you like to hold him? When I when they said we're going up, they brought a chair, and it was the day after my surgery. And everything hurt. I was like, Oh my God, this is horrible, I was able with help by so many people to sit down on the chair.
I remember going over the little transition between the floor and the [00:42:00] elevator, the little bump that hurt like hell. Then I went to see Zach and I held him. On the way back, I told my husband, I think I could walk. If they let me walk, I could walk. I got out of the chair, and I sat, I went to my bed.
None of those. pains. kangaroo care is not only a pain intervention for the babies, it's a pain intervention, it's a medical intervention, it's a mental health intervention, it's every type of intervention, For the parents.
Mary Coughlin: Yeah.
Yamile Jackson: Yeah. For the mom especially for the mom. So if you ask every mom, because I ask every mom, , , and then I ask every mom did you kangaroo care?
And they were, a lot of them are like, no, or I ask, how long did it take for you to kangaroo care? [00:43:00] And some of them save weeks. We need to say no, we held him the first day he was born, right? If I knew then what I know now, I would have held Zachary longer, definitely.
And so now that we have that information. We can ask a parent, would you like to hold your baby? We need to ask them, how long are you holding your baby today? There's no option whether you want to hold him or not. You're here for that. Your main reason is for you to be giving this medical health, mental health, Any, all these intervention, not only for them, but for you as well, right?
There are two trains of thought in kangaroo care. One is you cannot kangaroo care until the baby's stable. The other one, which is the one that I adhere to is the baby's [00:44:00] unstable because he's not in kangaroo care.
Mary Coughlin: And that is substantiated by the research, right?
Niels Bergen. There it is.
Yamile Jackson: This is what he said that this is I'm quoting him, I forgot to put his name in it. No, that's okay. Because when
Mary Coughlin: you said that, it was like
Yamile Jackson: yeah, that's what he says. And that's what that's the one, you, the baby needs to be in kangaroo care to be stable. So all these, that, kangaroo care, intubation.
Yes, holding a baby that is intubated is nerve wrecking. I did it. I did it. I know how hard it is. I know, I did kangaroo care five to seven hours every day which is still at this moment is a lot. Yes. Imagine 23 years ago, right? And I always think, I have, I feel Zachary is normal because of the kangaroo care.
Absolutely. Absolutely. And I would have held him longer if I knew. Every parent. [00:45:00] Says, I wish I knew then what I know now I wish somebody would have told me because I now regret not holding.
Longer or earlier or whatever. And it's
Mary Coughlin: our responsibility, right? As healthcare professionals and do no harm and offering the best medical support and resources that we possibly can fostering and facilitating, encouraging all of those words skin to skin experiences is the core of our partnership with the parents.
You had said earlier that about the magic. Of that experience. That it's a unique magical encounter that only the parent can provide, I can't do it. I do, I can do it physically, but the implications and the benefits are distinctly unique. With that mother and baby. That baby knows your smells literally inside and out, and so fostering that is really [00:46:00] crucial and critical. So you're absolutely right. For all of the work that you do and all of the amazing things that I've, been privileged to bear witness to. to you achieving and advocating for you to me epitomize what it is to care out loud.
I do. Oh my God. Absolutely true. And I would love to hear from you. What does that mean to you? What does it mean to care out loud? As Yamile Jackson, what does that look like?
Yamile Jackson: Being stubborn, being labeled as a difficult mother. See the culture in the NICU. is very important.
Mary Coughlin: Yeah.
Yamile Jackson: I feel, and I know that there are a lot of nurses that if you didn't have the biggest of the hearts and the biggest [00:47:00] wanting to help, you wouldn't be in the NICU. The NICU is a stressful place for everyone. I can't imagine the work that you guys do every day after day. I think caring out loud for me is not caring silently.
Just, I have talked about family centered care and I didn't have the name of it. But I have talked about trauma informed care for 23 years. A lot of people are like, you're crazy but, I think my experience, I'm like, if I feel this way, there has to be another mom that feels the same, because even though I think I'm special, I'm not that special.
That's unique. I'm not that unique, I think, having the courage to speak up, even when it's not, accepted, I am a Hispanic [00:48:00] female engineer. So I am used to. Being the first, we were only three in my class in engineering.
I have a PhD. I think I was literally the only female Hispanic that got a PhD in engineering in the United States when I graduated. and yeah, my, my promise to Zach is bigger than anybody trying to. Yeah.
Mary Coughlin: So on that incredibly profound note, before we wrap up, is there one nugget of wisdom or insight that you've gained over your career thus far, your life this far, that you'd like to share with the world?
Yamile Jackson: My work is out of appreciation for the work [00:49:00] that people do in the NICU. Thank you. We help NICUs and PICUs and every, everyone, my heart is always in the NICU, obviously and parents. We don't say how much we appreciate the staff. We know that, we go to the NICU and just by looking at the nurse, who is the nurse today that's going to tell us how our day is going to go.
So I think, being compassionate working for zero separation not labeling parents. The way the same way we shouldn't label the staff. All want the same thing. We all want healthy babies. We all want happy babies. We are all different.
But our journeys have so many things in common. So I think having parents peer support groups are great. And just, just be careful with the way we talk to parents because we definitely can break or make relationship with [00:50:00] babies. I couldn't, I wouldn't do anything else.
I think I was born to do these. I think it's
Mary Coughlin: very clear you were born to do this and it's a much better place because of the incredible love and passion and advocacy you bring to the world of Neonatology. And thank you so very much for sharing your time, your wisdom, and your story on the podcast today.
I am incredibly grateful. Thank you. Thank you
Yamile Jackson: so much for inviting me and for having this amazing resource for everyone. I can't wait for your next one too.
Mary Coughlin: Thank you so very much.
