Melissa Kingma, MSN, APRN

I’m a nurse practitioner in the Division of Neonatology, and I also work with bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) patients. I believe in the autonomy of the family unit and supporting their decision-making for their infant.

I was inspired by my mother, a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) nurse. When I was very young, we would visit the unit together and peer through the windows to see the premature infants. I also would go to work with her on take-your-child-to-work days.

For parents, being in the NICU is an extremely stressful environment where they have little to no control over what happens to their child. I believe in family-centered care. My approach is to empower the family and encourage them to be as involved with the care of their child as possible.

As a member of the BPD team at Cincinnati Children’s, we focus on the care of infants requiring mechanical ventilation and/or oxygen for extended periods of time. My goal is to strengthen our developmental care of these critically ill infants and maximize their outcomes.

In my free time, my family and I love to spend time on the water. We can usually be found on a lake or in the ocean — wakeboarding, surfing, skiing or fishing!