Nicu Clinical Report : Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Doctors

For the study, academic pediatric centres were required to have full-time training programs in pediatrics and pediatric surgery as well as a level 3 neonatal intensive care unit (ICU) while a community hospital must have had a neonatal ICU or special care nursery, no full-time pediatric or surgical training and 1000+ pediatric admissions between April 2008 and March 2009. All participating patients were under 19 years of age with a hospital stay over 24

Premature newborns have an increased risk of complications because their bodies still have underdeveloped parts such as the lungs, digestive system, immune system, and skin. Thus, promoting oxygenation, nutrition, and fluid balance, maintaining thermal regulation, resuscitation and transferring the newborn to NICU unit will help the child to get better (Ricci el., 2017, pg. 887).

A baby was just born at 26 weeks gestation. Just over half the normal 40 weeks a baby should stay inside the mother. The baby is immediately whisked away and taken to be evaluated and prepared for a long journey ahead. Ever since I could remember babies and the nursery at the hospital have fascinated me. Whenever we would go visit a friend who had a baby, I would find myself peaking over the windows into the nursery. I have known for a while that working in the neonatal intensive care unit is what I want to pursue. Recently I have been looking into nurse practitioners and furthering my education beyond my BSN. Being able to care for these infants in the most critical stages of their life, and being able to provide them the support they need to survive outside the womb seems so satisfying . Neonatal nurse practitioners have years of education, deep history, detailed job description, high demands and some legal issues.

According to the World Health Organisation [WHO] (2014) pre-term babies are at increased risk of illness, disability and death. It also states that globally 15 million babies are born pre-term and the figures are rising. In England and Wales during 2012 7.3% of live births were pre-term under 37 weeks nearly 85% of all babies born prematurely will have a very low birth weight (Office for National Statistics, 2012). Pre-term birth is associated with respiratory complications and lung disease, long-tern neurological damage and problems with bowel function (Henderson & Macdonald, 2011). Neonatal services provide care to babies who are born prematurely or are ill and require specialist care. It is seen that sixty per cent of infant deaths occur in the neonatal period (DH,

Most pregnant woman imagine how their developing fetus looks like, what the developing fetus is doing at a particular point, and aspire to deliver a healthy baby. Most important, many prenatal and postpartum women are eager to know what she can do to help deliver a healthy baby and how to care for the newborn. Here are some advices and activities offered to a prenatal, postpartum, and future development of a child includes healthy foods, consumption of adequate water, exercise, medication awareness, and emotions.

Group members are struggling with the many facets of having a NICU baby. This session will deal with some of the very common issues. Parents of NICU babies are often worried about how slowly their child may be progressing in comparison to other babies. This session the group will work through some of those progressions and regressions and help the parents to cope with this. Parents are sitting in the NICU for hours, watching other babies do things that their baby is not doing. However, this session will help show the parents that they are all doing this. Every parent in the group has likely been the parent on either end of that frustration/joy. Regression can be hard for parents and does happen often during a NICU stay. Group members may show some reluctant to talk about their child’s set-backs. They may be discouraged by them. Parents have a strong desire to know when their child will be discharged from the hospital. This can cause them to become upset when that does not happen (Pepler et. Al, 2012).

The APN leader interviewed for this paper is a Board Certified Nurse Practitioner (CNP), Chery Arnett works in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit for Memorial Hospital of Carbondale. She began as a registered nurse in 1981, then in 2001earned her CNP title. She manages and cares for the ill neonate, collaborates with Neonatologist and Pediatricians to improve overall health outcomes. She provides support and assists ventilation, assists with deliveries both “normal” and high risk infants, provides care for the healthy newborns, also providing guidance to parents for caring for the “neonate” or healthy newborns. She is also responsible for assessments, orders, treatment plans, medications, and discharge of the infant. CNP’s provide initial, ongoing and comprehensive care, including managing patients with acute and chronic illness and diseases for both premature infants and term infants.

In the past 20 years, prescription opioid abuse has been a rapidly growing issue in the United States. This rapid increase in abuse has led to more overdose deaths, and the increase of individuals pursuing treatment for their addiction (Brady, McCauley, & Back, 2013). The rising frequency of maternal opioid abuse affects thousands of mothers and newborns each year. According to the National Institute on Drug abuse, the use of opiates during pregnancy can result in a drug withdrawal syndrome in newborns called neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS). Almost every drug passes from the mother's bloodstream through the placenta to the fetus. Illicit substances that cause drug dependence and addiction in the mother also cause the fetus

For any mother the birth of a newborn child can be a challenging experience. As nurses it is part of our job to ensure their experience is positive. We can help do this by providing the information they will need to affective care for their newborn. This information includes topics such as, breastfeeding, jaundice, when to call your doctor and even how to put your baby to sleep. When the parents have an understanding of these topics before discharge it can largely reduce their natural anxiety accompanied with the transition to parenthood. Health teaching for new parents is seen as such an important aspect of care on post-partum floors it is actually a necessary component that needs to be covered before the hospital can discharge the

The nurse would want to ensure adequate nutrition for the baby and preventing aspiration or infection

While others do make it and are very healthy. Some infants have to stay in the neonatal unit while their parents gets discharged, but their parents are allowed to come back and spend time with their child during the day. The gestation age of the Neonatal Unit ranges from 23 to 42 weeks (Carter). It is very common for twins to be placed in the neonatal until because they are normally both small. Infants who are born early, and are placed in the neonatal unit are right where they need to be. When infants are born early more than likely the infants need that extra attention and care that is provided there. The doctors work around the clock to make sure the infants are taken care of properly. Infants in the neonatal until have more stress placed on them because they are so small. The infants have to be placed on different machines depending on their issue. Some of the infants need help breathing or maybe even need extra fluid. Also some infants may have to have vaccines attached to them that give them the food that is needed to survive. It is critical that only parents and siblings enter the unit. The infants are so small and some in such critical condition that they don’t need the extra germs from other people entering the unit. Depending on the unit some places do not even allow siblings to enter the

Moreover, infants are preverbal, which makes assessment and intervention especially challenging. Nonetheless, healthcare professionals must look out for warning signs. Some red flags may be raised as early as the baby’s birth. For example, poor mother-infant bonding from birth has been identified as a high risk for possible abuse later on and “may be caused by the delivery of a preterm infant, multiple infants, or one with a disability who has a prolonged stay in the hospital” (Lyden, 2011, p. 2).

The nurse must be mindful of each intervention initiated and the possible benefits of the intervention against its potential harmful effects for both mother and fetus. Not providing basic comfort measures for the mother can cause serious physical and emotional problems and could lead to possible fatigue and feelings of failure from the mother. The priority of this nursing intervention is to provide the mother and fetus with the least discomfort as possible and

This situation has made me grateful to be alive since I was able to be brought back to health due to these wonderful neonatal nurses who helped me recover, but not many newborn babies are fortunate enough to survive just like me as newborn babies have died and suffered due to the lack of supervision that neonatal nurses are incapable of providing.

Infants within the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) are one of the most vulnerable patient population in the hospital. The quality and safety of these patients are at top priority because of their immune systems have not fully developed yet causing them to be at the highest risk for infections. According to the Institute of Medicine (IOM, 2001), quality is defined as “the degree to which health services for individuals and populations increase the likelihood of desired health outcomes and are consistent with current professional knowledge” (Masters, 2005). The Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) defines safety as, “the minimization of risk of harm to patients and