A “beautiful connection” formed in the SickKids NICU

Rita's only time holding Mark skin-to-skin.

Rita Visconti approached her work in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) with a unique perspective: she knew what it was like to be a parent feeling alone and afraid on the busy unit, surrounded by the chaos and flurry of people. 

She’d experienced it firsthand as a parent in 2006, when she gave birth to triplets. Her son, Mark, passed away in the SickKids NICU and her other two newborns, John and Sophia, remained medically fragile in another hospital’s NICU.  

After Mark’s death, Rita could not bring herself to go to that hospital’s NICU to see John and Sophia, fearing something terrible would happen to them as well. Instead, she stayed in the 24/7 care room the hospital provided, where she could “do all the things that a mom is supposed to do” like pump, eat and rest.  

Two days went by, and then someone knocked on the door. It was a nurse from the NICU with John in her arms.  

“She said, ‘If you won’t come see him, he’s going to come see you because he needs his mom,’” Rita recalls. “And that was the moment where my life changed. She helped me realize I was already attached to my kids, so I could go see them and spend time with them and care for them.” 

Seven years later, Rita saw a posting for a parent liaison in the SickKids NICU. The role was new not just to the unit, but to the entire hospital, with the aim of offering peer support to families in the NICU. Rita didn’t have a background in health care – she previously worked in pensions – but after Mark’s death, she knew she needed a job that “filled her cup.” She wasn’t looking to come back to work at the time, as John and Sophia still had lots of medical appointments, but remembering her family’s NICU experiences, she considered it.   

“I thought if I could have the opportunity to even impact one family, and have them not feel as alone as I’d felt when my babies were in the NICU, I wanted to do it.” 

Rita spent more than a decade as the NICU’s parent liaison. She recently transitioned to a new role at SickKids in the Office of Patient, Family and Community Engagement, where she’s helping to connect families and staff so they can partner in a meaningful way to embed family voices in the design of care, education and research. 

Still, the legacy of her support to NICU families remains, showing how one act of connection – like the nurse who knocked on the door when she was too afraid to visit her children in the NICU – can become a cascading “ripple effect,” helping even more families going through some of the most challenging days of their lives.  

Finding support in the NICU 

Jessica visited her newborn son Ben in the SickKids NICU “like it was a full-time job.” Her husband Paul dropped her off at SickKids early in the morning on his way to work and she’d stay until around 6 p.m. Throughout the day she read to Ben, who was born at 24 weeks, weighing just one pound and facing breathing complications and gastrointestinal issues.

She sang nursery rhymes and created and sang her own song for him. She asked the clinical team lots of questions and tried to advocate for Ben. Her family didn’t live close by, and she didn’t know anyone else who’d had a premature baby, much less a micro-preemie like her son.  

“I didn’t really have a strong support system. I was really struggling to have my questions answered, to figure out how and why things were happening the way they were,” she says. 

When NICU staff introduced her to Rita, that began to change.  

“She was amazing. She is super supportive and always helpful, understanding and even just there to listen. If I wanted to rant about something, the machines going off or whatever the case may be, she was a perfect person to help with all those things.” 

Jessica now credits Rita as playing a “key part” in keeping her afloat during those heavy times, when she and her husband “didn’t know how we were going to make it some days.” 

“If I had a bad day, and we found out Ben needed surgery or something, she would be there to support me and support us and say, ‘This is how it can go,’” Jessica recounts. Rita shared what Jessica could expect and helped her navigate the process, making it clear she was there to support her family no matter what happened.  

“Medically, we need to take care of the baby, but if the family is not well enough to take care of the baby once they get home then we’re doing them a disservice,” Rita says. “We have to equally take care of the family.” 

Prioritizing family wellness is a key part of SickKids’ Patient and Family Experience Strategy. 

On the heaviest days, Rita shared uplifting words with Jessica. She also invited her to the caregiver wellness programming she ran, which brightened the long days at the hospital. That included a scrapbooking club – Rita had missed out on creating memories when her kids were in the NICU and didn’t want other parents to do the same thing.  

“She’d say, ‘You better get your scrapbook done now, because once Ben’s home, you won’t have time to do anything,’” Jessica says. “And that thought sometimes never crossed my mind, like, ‘Is he coming home?’” 

Six months after he was born, Ben did come home – and, as Rita predicted, Jessica has not finished her scrapbook. 

“Such a beautiful connection” 

A few years later, Rita reached out to invite Jessica’s family to SickKids’ first annual NICU barbecue. Rita had been part of the group that created the event, inspired by a similar one at the hospital where John and Sophia were in the NICU, which she’d attended to thank the nurse who had such a big impact on her.

That September, Jessica, Paul and Ben made the trip to a Toronto park to reconnect with the staff and families who were part of their NICU journey. They’ve continued to attend every year since as Ben has grown older and learned more about what he calls his “special story.” 

“It’s nice to connect with staff and families and to share stories with people who have gone through what you’ve gone through,” Jessica says.  

As Ben grew up and returned to SickKids for check-ups and appointments, he and Jessica always returned to the NICU to visit Rita. 

“I know she helped so many families,” Jessica says, “but I feel like she gave us some extra love. I really appreciate that so much, and Ben loves her.”  

The feeling from Rita is mutual. She praises Jessica’s advocacy for Ben when he was in the NICU, telling her, “You were there for him day in and day out and really knew him better than anyone, and that allowed you to advocate for him in such a beautiful way that he needed.” 

Jessica and Ben’s visits “would just make my day,” Rita says. “It’s been such a beautiful connection that I hope lasts forever.” 

“My time in the NICU was one of the most intimate times in my life. So I feel blessed and grateful for families like Jessica’s that let me in during such an intimate time.”