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Neonatal Intensive Care Unit ( Nicu ) Essay

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The introductory unit to occupational therapy services in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) was highly informative and interesting along with being complex. A majority of the content from the Jane Case-Smith and Jane Clifford O’Brien chapter and the Dr. Pamela J. Kling lecture was very new for us and, therefore, was also very exciting. Our knowledge regarding the NICU has now grown after reading and listening to these great resources and we can now understand the specific causes, manifestation, diagnostic procedures and symptoms of a baby in need of spending time in a NICU. Additionally, we can figure out how daily occupations are possibly impacted by experience in a NICU along with the interventions that are commonly utilized by an OT in a NICU.

Cause and Manifestation Causes for needing to spend time in a NICU can be many and unique, but according to our resources from the Jane Case-Smith text and the Dr. Kling lecture, two of these causes includes being born prematurely or because of illicit drug use during pregnancy. The manifestation, or appearance, of a premature infant and an infant of illicit drug use differ in many ways. According to the Jane Case-Smith text, the skin of a premature infant is very thin (Case-Smith & O’Brien, 2015). A study done by Janet Green, Philip Darbyshire, Anne Adams and Debra Jackson also revealed that some NICU nurses even went on to describe the skin of some premature infants as, “jelly-like” (Green, Darbyshire, & Adams, 2014). One

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