Hushabye Nursery in Phoenix offers one-on-one care for opioid-dependent newborns going through the painful process of drug withdrawals.
It is one of the few recovery centers of its kind helping moms, and caretakers, too, who are actively trying to get clean.
Tara Sundem is the founder who tells ABC15 the work being done at Hushabye Nursery is leading to positive change.
She says, "We have case managers dealing with social determinants of health, housing, food transportation, then we have another case manager who works specifically with child welfare. We also have therapists and trauma support specialists."
Sundem is a neonatal nurse practitioner who decided to start Hushabye Nursery while working in the NICU at busy hospitals. She said she saw a desperate need for drug-exposed babies across the Valley to get specialized care.
"Imagine a baby going through flu-like symptoms, vomiting, diarrhea, shakes, not being able to sleep... then finally falling asleep. Being in the neonatal intensive care unit, and a baby next to you that weighs less than a pound starts to code. You have all these people running to help that baby, and you just got to sleep. There are babies that need to be cared for in the neonatal intensive care unit. We are not that. We are a specialty center for babies that are withdrawing."
She also tells ABC15, "of the families who come to us, 67% get into treatment."
There are 12 dimly lit private rooms at Hushabye Nursery.
Each room is equipped with everything a new baby needs to feel and get better.
"All of a sudden you put them in one of our nurses’ arms who... this is just what they do and they love it and the babies just melt in."
Sundem also shares, "Within an hour of them being here, you see them just deescalate."
More than 530 babies have been able to recover at Hushabye Nursery since November 2020 when it opened near 32nd Street and McDowell Road.
Sundem says their focus is healing the entire family to keep babies with healthy parents for life.
If you need help or know someone who does, call/text 480-628-7500 or email Info@HushabyeNursery.org.
