Neonatal Nursing Research Paper

Caring for a sick infant can be emotionally draining even when it is your profession. One profession that works with sick infants is neonatal nurses. A neonatal nurse “…works with newborn infants born with a variety of problems ranging from prematurity, birth defects, infection, cardiac malformations, and surgical problems. The neonatal period is defined as the first month of life; however, these newborns are often sick for months” ("What Is Neonatal Nursing?”). They can provide care in various places such as the hospital, the community, and home care. In hospital’s “ staff ratios range from 1:1 to 1:4; you may care for one to four patients depending on how sick they are ”(“What Is Neonatal Nursing?”). Neonatal nurses encounter different …show more content…
Deborah Davis and Mara Stein on March of Dimes said, “For many families, a baby 's NICU stay is like a roller coaster ride, with ups and downs, triumphs and setbacks. Of course, the parents are also along for the ride” (Davis). Having a child in an NICU is unexpected because parents “ have this great expectation of the perfect child, who will grow, learn, achieve, but you have to move the goal posts sometimes” (Gallagher 1174). Additionally, parents are going into a scary world where they are unable to help their child. Infants can spend days to months in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) fighting for their lives. Being helpless can cause the parents to have a few problems including depression. Mothers are more likely to get depressed, “Clinically significant symptoms of depression and anxiety are prevalent in mothers of hospitalized, premature infants, high- lighting the need for an intervention that can be delivered early on in the NICU”(Segre 927). Furthermore, sleep deprivation is also a problem; parents spend less time sleeping worrying about the wellness of their child.Stressful parents can be a problem for the neonatal nurses as one said, “I sometimes feel insufficient, or that I’m being pulled away from the bed or incubator . . . You have to tell parents that ‘I’m sorry, but my attention is needed here. I’ll come talk to you later.’ It’s not a good feeling, but some- times this is what you have to do” ( Strandås 905). Parents deal with unplanned circumstances which can cause them to make it harder for neonatal nurses to complete their job and cause them to have stress. The parents can nag and irritate nurses and that might cause the nurses not be around those parents. Rotating patients will give the neonatal nurses less time to spend with specific parents and would not be annoyed with a