Tiny patients, big fight: NICU parents win leave in 2 states and push
for more
[May 18, 2026]
By ALEXANDRA OLSON
NEW YORK (AP) — As his daughter Olivia was born, Marlon White felt his
wife's hand slacken as she fainted. The baby, born at 29 weeks and
weighing about 2 pounds, wasn't making a sound as she was rushed to the
neonatal intensive care unit. Terrified, he waited in the hall while the
doctors stabilized his newborn and wife.
The next day, White, a welder, was back at work. Two days later, his
wife, Farra Lanzer-White, was also back on the job, setting up a work
station at the Denver hospital. For two months, first at one hospital
then another, she kept up with emails and meetings as alarm bells went
off each time Olivia stopped breathing, as she herself prepared for
open-heart surgery for a condition discovered during her difficult
pregnancy.
The Fort Collins, Colorado couple made a choice familiar to many parents
with newborns in intensive care: Keep working while the baby is in the
NICU to save any parental leave they might have for when the baby comes
home. They are now part of a growing movement advocating for the
adoption of NICU leave in the country's patchwork of family leave
policies, which differ between states, cities and companies.
In January, seven months after Olivia was born, Colorado became the
first U.S. state to adopt paid NICU leave, offering up to 12 weeks for
parents with newborns in intensive care on top of the 12 weeks of
parental leave under the state's family and medical leave program. A
more modest policy will take effect next month in Illinois, guaranteeing
between 10 and 20 days of unpaid leave to NICU parents.
While advocates want more states to adopt NICU leave, a major focus now
is galvanizing support for a federal bill to add NICU leave to the
Family and Medical Leave Act, the 1993 law that entitles eligible
workers nationwide to take unpaid leave for family and medical reasons,
said Inimai Chettiar, president of A Better Balance, a nonprofit that
advocates for paid leave and other workplace policies in support of
families.
“We think it’s promising in terms of bipartisan support, because as
we’ve approached people, it seems that they intuitively understand it,"
said Chettiar.
U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen, a Colorado Democrat who is drafting the
federal bill said it would offer up to 12 weeks of NICU leave on top of
the 12 weeks of parental leave available under the FMLA.
Push for bipartisan support
The U.S. has no federal law mandating paid family or parental leave, an
issue that has long divided Democrats and Republicans. While FMLA leaves
out many workers who can't afford to take unpaid leave, Pettersen said
the goal is to win bipartisan support for the idea of NICU leave and
bring it to the forefront of discussions surrounding parental leave.
The NICU leave bills passed in Colorado and Illinois offer mixed signals
about the potential for bipartisanship. Colorado's paid leave passed
mostly along party lines, while the shorter, unpaid leave adopted in
Illinois had overwhelming bipartisan support.
Unlike Colorado, Illinois does not already have a paid family leave
program in which it could incorporate NICU leave, said Illinois state
Rep. Laura Faver Dias, a Democrat who introduced the bill and whose twin
boys were born at 27 weeks in 2014 and stayed intensive care for three
months.
Several Republican lawmakers became co-sponsors, including state Rep.
Nicole La Ha, whose daughter spent 45 days in the NICU in 2017 after her
water broke at almost 30 weeks.
“Unless you have had this experience, you can’t fully understand why
something like this is so meaningful,” said La Ha. “You have an infant
who is struggling to eat and breathe. The last thing you want to think
about is work but unfortunately you have bills to pay.”
While Colorado's bill lacked bipartisan support, Colorado State Sen.
Jeff Bridges said “it was the quietest opposition you could hear,” with
few Republicans or business groups publicly speaking against it. Bridges
introduced the bill a year after his son Kit was born two months early
and weighing just 2 pounds.
“I wanted to share stories that were so moving that the lobbyists would
look like monsters if they opposed it,” Bridges said.
A handful of businesses step in
Nearly one out of 10 babies born in the U.S. are admitted to a NICU,
according to the most recent figures from the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention.
While in the NICU, newborns are still learning to swallow, breath on
their own and regulate their body temperature, said Dr. Karen Puopolo,
section chief for Newborn Medicine at Pennsylvania Hospital and chair of
the Committee on Fetus and Newborns of the American Academy of
Pediatrics. Parental presence has a “multitude of advantages both ways,"
Puopolo said. Skin-to-skin contact slows down the baby's heart beat,
improves their breathing and helps the mother with milk production.
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This 2020 photo provided by Rebeca Herrera-Moreno shows her with her
son, Nico, in Los Angeles. (Rebeca Herrera-Moreno via AP)
 In recent years, a smattering of
companies have adopted dedicated paid NICU leave, including Morgan
Stanley, Pinterest and the organic baby formula company Bobbie,
while others have extended the length of parental leave or added
policies like caregiving leave, which could also help NICU parents.
But mostly, the plight of NICU parents has been a blind spot, said
Sahra Cahoon, executive director Love for Lily, a Colorado-based
organization that supports NICU families and advocated for
Colorado's new law.
Cahoon launched the organization after her daughter Lily, born at 24
weeks and five days, died after three-and-a-half months in the NICU.
Cahoon, who owned a jewelry-making business at the time, said she
worked, believing her daughter would survive.
“It's probably one of my biggest regrets,” Cahoon said, though at
the time she felt lucky to be able to work remotely from the
hospital and didn't feel she could afford to give up her income. “We
did not know that our story was going to end that way.”
Feeling unprepared
When Rebeca Herrera-Moreno learned about Colorado’s NICU leave law
last year, it brought her back to her son’s time in the NICU six
years earlier and she decided to leap into advocacy for a similar
provision in her home state of California.
When her son Nico was born at 32 weeks in 2020, Herrera-Moreno was
already on disability leave, having entered preterm labor weeks
earlier. Her husband, Martin Moreno, was entitled to six weeks of
paid parental leave under California law at the time, but they
decided he would save that time for when Nico could come home, which
ended up being three weeks later.
She struggled to enjoy moments with her tiny son while holding him
surrounded by machines, monitors and nurses. She would say “I love
you” every day before leaving him while guilt swelled inside her
that she hadn't developed that feeling yet. Weeks later at home, she
opened to up to her husband, Martin Moreno, who confessed that he
had felt the same way.
Moreno, a health director for a labor union, said he was consumed at
the time with his job, which suddenly intensified as the COVID-19
pandemic swept the country. To this day, his most vivid memory of
the period isn't with his son in the NICU, but of a video he helped
produce to show workers how to properly wash their hands.
When he came home, he felt unprepared to care for Nico, who had to
be fed on his side to prevent choking. He had been oblivious to his
wife’s emotional turmoil.
“I wish I would have had more preparation with the medical staff to
really feel like I had everything set. And that’s speaking to the
medical piece of it — not even addressing being absent for Becky
during so much of this,” Moreno said.
Being present
Nearly 800 people have applied for neonatal care leave since
Colorado’s policy took effect in January, according to Tracy
Marshall, director of Colorado’s Family and Medical Leave Insurance
Division.
Among the first were Chris and Stevie Madden, whose son was born
almost eight weeks early on Jan. 11.
Stevie Madden, a mental health professional who had been rushed to
the hospital after her blood pressure spiked and she began bleeding,
said she panicked about how to handle the crisis and work when she
realized she had planned to start her maternity leave much later.
A nurse at the hospital, however, told Chris Madden about the new
NICU leave, which they both applied for.
Madden, an oil field mechanic, said he wouldn’t have been able to
keep him mind on his risky job while his son was fighting for his
life. He said he learned how to handle his baby’s delicate skin —
press gently, don’t rub — and gained the confidence he needed when
Roczen stopped breathing once after returning home and had to be
rushed the hospital.
He told every parent he met at hospital about NICU leave.
“It was life changing not to have to think about money and stress
and just be present with your baby,” Madden said.
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