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  • KMOV: St. Louis Nurse Reflects on Daughter’s Premature Birth During NICU Awareness Month

    • KMOV: St. Louis Nurse Reflects on Daughter’s Premature Birth During NICU Awareness Month

    Erika Pangburn works as a nurse in the NICU at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. When her own daughter was born more than two months early, she experienced the unit differently.

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    About one in every 10 babies born in the U.S. spends time in a neonatal intensive care unit during the first days of life, according to the CDC.

    This statistic is not new to Erika Pangburn, who works as a nurse in the NICU at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. But when Erika delivered her daughter, Emerson, at 29 weeks due to preeclampsia, the NICU nurse experienced the unit from the other side—as a patient.

    This NICU Awareness Month, Erika and Dr. Jagruti Anadkat, a WashU Medicine neonatologist at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, spoke with KMOV about care offered at the NICU and why it is so important for families and their newborns.