'Comfort Club': Student-run volunteering on the neonatal intensive care unit.

Abstract

Comfort Club is an initiative coordinated by medical students and staff at the Rosie Hospital, in Cambridge, whereby student volunteers are trained to provide positive touch and support for infants on the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). In this Insights article, we reflect on our experiences as student volunteers (R.E.T., G.M.J.), the student coordinator (G.M.J.) and lead consultant (K.B.) and consider the learning opportunities we identified from these three perspectives. Taking inspiration from volunteer comforting initiatives in NICUs in the United States, Comfort Club was founded in 2017 to fulfil unmet needs of students, infants, parents and staff on the NICU. For students at the University of Cambridge, neonatology experience is limited to 2 half-days of a 4-week paediatrics placement. Although other volunteering initiatives such as ‘Teddy Bear Hospital’ allow students to work with children, none provide experience with neonates. Comfort Club addresses this by enabling students to gain early, high-volume exposure to neonatology, improving their confidence and potentially positively influencing career choice. For infants on the NICU, positive touch has been shown to benefit pain tolerance, length of hospital stay and long-term neurodevelopment. With time constraints on busy staff and on parents who often have to travel long distances to a specialist unit each day, Comfort Club volunteers help increase provision of positive touch, supporting infants’ developmental needs. Similar schemes have found that parents report decreased anxiety at times when they are unable to visit the NICU if reassured a volunteer can support their infant. Finally, the scheme also supports staff, providing an extra pair of hands at busy times. Comfort Club volunteers help increase provision of positive touch, supporting infants’ developmental needs.