The Canadian Standards for Parent and Family Engagement in the Care of Hospitalized Preterm and Sick Newborns
Advocating for a New Standard of Care in Canada’s NICUs
Every parent deserves to be an active and essential part of their infant’s care — especially during the vulnerable and often overwhelming experience of a NICU stay. In Canada today, the level of parental presence, participation, and involvement varies widely from one NICU to another and sometimes from team to team in the same unit. A family’s experience and ability to participate in their child’s care should not depend on which hospital their baby is admitted to.
CPBF is advocating for a national Standard of Care that recognizes parents as integral members of their infant’s healthcare team. We believe parents should be welcomed, supported, informed, and meaningfully involved in all aspects of their child’s care throughout their hospital journey, to the greatest extent possible.
Universal standards would ensure that parent partnership is not dependent on a hospital’s individual policies, resources, or practices — and that no family is left to navigate the NICU alone or inadvertently slips through the cracks.
By establishing consistent, family-inclusive Standards of Care across NICUs in Canada, we can strengthen parent–infant relationships, improve the experience and quality of care for families, and advance equity, consistency and developmentally appropriate neonatal care for every baby and every family, everywhere in Canada.
This project is called Canadian Standards for Parent and Family Engagement in the Care of Hospitalized Preterm and Sick Newborns.
Parents are not visitors. They are essential caregivers.
Project Team
This work is being guided by a multidisciplinary team with expertise in neonatal care, family-integrated care, research, health systems, equity, and lived experience.
Preemie Chats
Learn More About the Canadian Standards Project
In this Preemie Chats session, CPBF introduces the Canadian Standards project, why it matters, and the opportunity to create a shared national framework that supports parent-newborn closeness and family engagement in neonatal care.
Get Involved
Help Shape This Work
We are building these standards with the people closest to neonatal care and welcome participation from:
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Clinicians and neonatal care teams
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Children’s hospitals, maternal-newborn programs, NICUs, and neonatal networks
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Standards, accreditation, and quality improvement organizations
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Indigenous health leaders, communities, and organizations
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Equity, cultural safety, and anti-racism experts
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Researchers in neonatal care, family-integrated care, child health, health systems, implementation science, and health policy
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Health system leaders, policymakers, and provincial and territorial partners
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Charitable, advocacy, and child health organizations working to improve care for preterm and sick newborns
To get involved please reach out to use here
“The best way to nurture the newly born low birthweight baby, including in high-income countries, is through ongoing skin-to-skin contact with the mother.”
- Dr. Björn Westrup, Karolinska Institute, World Health Organization, 2021
"Most healthcare providers in the NICUs know and are convinced of the importance of supporting babies and parents with developmental and family-centered care. The gap is between this knowledge and the application at the bedside. We are trained to have extensive knowledge and technical skills. But we have very limited training on how to engage emotionally with our patients or use a reflective approach.
This is why our standards are so important: to provide a framework and guidance at the bedside to facilitate the transition. Because it won't be comfortable for the healthcare providers, and adopting a new culture or philosophy of care takes time and effort."
Dr. Laurent Renesme
