The 90 minutes that Whitney Zachritz spends offering books and snacks to parents of the hospital’s littlest patients are typically the most special of her week.
Zachritz, an intensive care nursery clinical practice leader at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, hands out between 30 and 50 children’s books every week to parents, depending on how many babies are in the nursery. Some families want Zachritz to select the book, while others enjoy perusing the cart. Sometimes they chat about how the baby’s doing and the vibe they’re projecting that day—strength, calm, and stick-to-itiveness are popular in this environment—and Zachritz will look for a fitting title. A lifelong reader herself, Zachritz loves making recommendations.
One day last fall, baby Mohamed (“Mo”) was getting his breathing tube taken out after three months in the intensive care nursery. “He needs a ‘You can do it!’” Zachritz said to his mother, Boura Zerbo. “It’s a lot of work to have the tube removed and breathe more or less on his own.”
With the baby’s dad in West Africa, Zerbo sat by Mo’s incubator all day, every day, and often read to the infant. He was born at 23 weeks of gestation, weighing 1 pound. “Love You Forever” was his first book, which she remembers reading to him through tears, thinking about how hard he was fighting to stay alive.
Most of her time on duty in the 38-bed neonatal intensive care unit, Zachritz is responding in moments of crisis to assist the nurses; explaining things to families while the teams work on their babies; or generally helping parents through the frightening roller coaster of having an extremely low-birth-weight or medically fragile newborn in intensive care for days or months. But when Zachritz is walking through the room with her cart of books, granola bars, and other freebies, the moments are lighter: She’s just there to give out books and treats.
“The cart is meant to break up the day and bring a sense of lightness and joy to families,” Zachritz says. “No matter how their day has gone, the cart is meant to bring joy, not add stress.
This story is by Daphne Sashin. Read more at Penn Medicine News.
