Note: No celebrities were harmed in the making of this blog.
I didn’t get to hold my son when he was born. Nicholas arrived five weeks early and wasn’t breathing all that well, so a nurse bundled him up, showed me what he looked like and then whisked him away to the NICU, the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
It wasn’t until about two o’clock the next morning that I finally got to pad down the hall, wash up, put on a gown and hold my newborn, being careful not to unhook the various wires attached to his soft little body that were measuring his heart rate and breathing.
Believe me, if Beyonce had gotten in the way of that new mom moment, she’d have more than episiotomy stitches to worry about.
According to numerous accounts, including this one in the New York Times, security for R & B star Beyonce and her hip-hop mogul husband Jay-Z blocked other new parents from entering the NICU at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City this weekend after the birth of super-couple’s daughter, Blue Ivy Carter.
The hospital has denied such reports, telling People that no security plan “would have prevented or delayed families from gaining access to the NICU.”
But parents at Lenox Hill Hospital say otherwise. One father told the Times that security guards kept him out of the NICU and away from his wife and baby for three hours, and a mother was told that if she left the NICU, she wouldn’t be allowed back in to see her babies.
I’m trying to imagine the mom of quads, who had already been in the hospital for a few months before Nicholas arrived, being told that leaving and returning would be prohibited, as though the NICU was a Beyonce concert or something.
Oh no you didn’t!
There were reports of security cameras being covered and guards with earpieces and “special event” tags roaming the maternity ward. Which is perfectly fine if you’re music business royalty, but if you’re a run-of-the-mill parents just trying to see your newborn, it’s a pain in the ass, to say the least.
Health officials have reported they will not investigate. Reports ABC News:
“Staff spoke with the hospital [and] determined there were no violations,” Michael Moran, a representative for the New York State Health Department, said in an email statement to ABCNews.com. ”And we have received no complaints.”
Because when you have a newborn in the NICU, your biggest concern is filling out paperwork for a formal complaint? Well, at least it’s no longer sidestepping Beyonce’s security guards: The couple and their baby have left the building.
