Warning: this article deals with pregnancy loss.
After six years of miscarriages and IVF, Sean Maloney and Marissa Pace never expected the hardest part of their journey to come after the birth.
Northern Beaches Hospital’s Special Care Nursery has a bed next to every humidicrib. And it made all the difference when Sean and Marissa’s daughter, Finn, arrived at 35 weeks.
“Knowing that there was a place that you could come and be next to her and sleep next to her really meant everything,” Marissa told Manly Observer.
“I couldn’t believe that beds next to humidicribs weren’t a thing everywhere,” Sean added.
“I thought that it would just be common sense.”
Let’s start at the beginning
Sean and Marissa met in Hong Kong in 2019, while working together at World Rugby Sevens. What followed was six years of trying to conceive.
“It [started as] natural conception at first, where you think your body’s supposed to work,” Marissa explained.
“[After] many miscarriages, we realised we needed to go through IVF, and of course, you think IVF will work immediately and nothing will go wrong.
“But we ended up going through three different IVF doctors with multiple miscarriages.
“It was a really tough time in our days. It was a long journey.”
Sean added that if it wasn’t the miscarriages, it was just never getting to the “starting line”.
“In December 2025, with our last embryo, it hung tough, and now look what we have,” he said, looking at his baby girl.
Sean and Marissa said they could never celebrate the pregnancy, constantly on the lookout for how it could all go wrong.
At around 30 weeks, scans showed Finn was measuring small. At 34 weeks, Marissa’s doctor told them they needed to go straight to Northern Beaches Hospital.
“It’s really hard because you can’t see the other side,” Marissa said.
“So when you’re here, you’re just worried about everything.
“You’re just scared that she’s going to come out alive, breathing, normal.”
Neither parent could hold Finn after her birth.
“When I was admitted to the maternity ward, I was very kindly brought to the Special Care Nursery to see where Finn would be when she was born, and that was so reassuring,” Marissa added.
The Special Care Nursery is across the hall from the Maternity Ward at Northern Beaches Hospital. While mums are admitted and looked after in the Maternity Ward, they are free to visit their premature or unwell babies who are admitted to the Special Care Nursery as long as they want, and maternity staff will come and do their obs in Special Care.
The bed that meant “everything”
Since August 2023, Northern Beaches Hospital’s Special Care Nursery has had an adult bed beside every humidicrib, allowing a parent to rest and stay close to their baby, including overnight.
Northern Beaches Hospital isn’t the only hospital to have this setup, but it remains relatively uncommon across hospitals. The large, open space of the relatively new hospital makes it possible.
“If someone told me that I had to go home, and be without her, that would’ve been really hard,” Marissa said.
“So, it was everything to be able to sleep next to her and reach out and put my hands on her.”
Sean couldn’t believe having an adult bed next to a humidicrib isn’t a standard practice.
“You can pop the little portholes open, and you can still have that skin to skin,” he said.
“I know it’s not your chest, and it’s not your cheeks, but just to be able to touch something that you’ve waited so long for, it’s the next best thing.
“Obviously, I couldn’t believe that beds next to humidicribs weren’t a thing.”
It was in the Special Care Nursery, with Finn by their side, that Marissa and Sean could finally breathe a sigh of relief.
“We didn’t buy anything for the nursery until we were here,” Marissa said.
“We were just scared we’d have to call somebody to pack it up.”
Sean said when he went home there would be boxes from Amazon and Baby Bunting as they frantically ordered things for a nursery that they could never bring themselves to set up.
“Because [the staff] are so good in [the Special Care Nursery], it gave us time to be able to set up stuff at home,” Sean added.
The evidence behind the model
In 2023, hospital staff decided to put adult beds next to the humidicribs in the Special Care Nursery (which takes premature and unwell babies from 32 weeks) to see what, if any, impact it could have on families.
“Some of us have worked in nurseries where parents can’t stay; they have to go home, and you can sense the trauma of that when you’re a clinician, and it is an obstruction to a relationship,” Paediatrician Dr Claire Egbers told Manly Observer.
The introduction of having parents close to their newborns resulted in better breastfeeding rates, earlier discharges, and families who felt more supported.
“We’ve definitely noticed, as clinicians, that we’re getting babies [discharged] earlier and more safely,” Dr Egbers added.
“We also have a really good pathway to our early childhood and community support services.
“We see our babies on the ward for review about a week later, just to make sure everything’s going okay.”
Sean calls it a bed for a bed.
“You would have thought making sure Mum was happy, would mean baby is happy, which means you might get out early, which means the bed is free for someone else,” he explained.
“So, it’s a bed for a bed in some ways.”
Home
Finn was discharged at 37 weeks. Her parents credit the Nursery’s staff for getting them to bring their baby home.
“They treat your little one like their own family, their own little son or daughter or nephew or niece,” Sean said.
“I cannot sing their praises high enough or loud enough because they were they were just extraordinary.”
The Pink Elephants Pregnancy Loss Helpline, delivered by PANDA, provides targeted mental health counselling and support for families experiencing pregnancy loss or miscarriage.
It’s a free service and can be reached by calling 1300 726 306.
It operates Monday to Friday from 9am – 7:30pm and Saturdays and public holidays 9am – 4pm AEST and is staffed by trained and experienced counsellors and volunteers.
