(Harrisburg) — Child birth is a joyous, scary, wonderful, nerve-racking time. 

It’s difficult enough if everything goes well. 

But some newborns have to spend days, weeks, or sometimes even months in the neonatal intensive care unit. 

It’s a place where even the most prepared parents don’t know what to think or how to act. 

So how do you make the experience easier for them? 

There’s a staff member at one midstate hospital who does everything she can. 

Meet Jillian London. 

One minute, she’s giving the rundown during rounds in PinnacleHealth’s Harrisburg Hospital: “So mom has an appointment to get a car seat, I gave her a car seat voucher.”faceface

The next: “Hi Heather, it’s Jill from Harrisburg Hospital’s NICU, giving you a call back. ”

You could call her a Jill of all trades.

London isn’t a doctor, a nurse practitioner, a respiratory therapist, or a nutritionist – she’s a social worker. 

“I’m making phone calls. I’m putting puzzle pieces together for the family so that they don’t have to do it themselves. I’m returning emails. I’m making early intervention referrals.”

She’s part of the care team, just like all the other professional staff in the neonatal intensive care unit, or NICU. 

London goes on rounds every morning along with the others who provide updates about how each baby did overnight, and the care plan for the day. 

Her part of the conversation sounds a little different.

“So it’s just something we had discussed because there’s going to be a lot of transportation barriers getting mom up here, she has another kid at home. Are we going to keep calling every couple of days? Or are they going to call us? Oh, they’ll call us.”

This is all connected to expanding role of health systems – thanks to a strong push by the federal Affordable Care Act.

No longer are hospitals expected to just treat the body – they’re expected to treat the whole person. 

They can avoid financial penalties by keeping babies healthy and out of the hospital.  

And that involves a concerted effort every bit of the way. 

London will deal with children and youth services, as mothers try to get custody or visitation with their babies.

She’s on the phone: “So is court still set for 1:30, are you calling in? 

Okay, okay, and you have the number to NICU in case my line’s tied up?”

She’ll testify in court as needed, but she has to balance what the mother wants with what she may think is best for the child. 

“Obviously our biggest concern is for his neurological issues that he’s going to have some sort of intensive home services and mom maintains her sobriety,” she says on the phone.

This is challenging, challenging work – the medical team demands one thing, the mother may desire another, and children and youth may be pressing too. 

And Jillian London is left in the middle, to find the balance. 

“When I do get home, I’m like empty. I’m completely empty. And so, I have made a consious effort to focus on what’s going on. If I’m too depleted, I can’t be effective in my job nor at home.”

Still, she loves the work. 

Sometimes, it can take parents weeks to make eye contact with her, because when they hear social worker, they think she’s here to take their baby. 

She sees that resistance as a challenge. 

Take this rule that most hospitals have – visitors must be at least 3 years old. 

For a mother with two young kids at home, that can make a hospital visit near impossible. 

“Bring them in, I will take them to the parent room and we’ll color, we’ll watch Sesame Street for an hour, just to give you the opportunity to visit with your premature baby. And sometimes that makes the difference between the success of this baby going home with this mom or not,” says London.

It’s all in pursuit of a happy, healthy baby, and a happy, healthy mom and family. 

“It’s a reward where I can go to the NICU reunion for all of our babies who have graduated the NICU and are now 3 years old. To see them and I know them, to me that’s huge because it shows, wow, you made it, you were one pound, and now you’re 3 and you’re running around and you’re vibrant and you’re energized and you can’t tell you were a preemie, and the family did it, and you know you had a hand in that.”

“There’s a huge reward for that.”

When the stay in the NICU ends and London says her goodbyes, each person goes home with a smile on their face, and a sense that they can take on whatever is next.  

“Just that, just knowing that we helped this family be successful. We saved another life of a child that 15 20 years ago would not be here, to me that’s enough reward just to say that. That we saved a life.”

And those parents know, she’s always just a phone call away.