Pediatrics

Pediatrics

Developmental Care of Preterm Infants

The care of premature infants within childbearing families has become a significant challenge with the global increase in prematurity rates to 12% of all births, or 16 million premature infants born each year. There is variation around the world, including an 18% rate of prematurity in the African American population of the United States. These premature infants are less well developed to handle the environment outside of their mother's womb. Increasingly these early born and low birth weight infants survive their intensive care nursery experience. However, there remains a strong likelihood of their having some type of a neurosensory impairment, which will have lifelong effects on their learning ability and social emotional health (Als, 2003).

Nearly half of all children born prematurely show later learning disabilities, attention deficits, behavior problems, adverse emotional issues, and school failure, according to H. Gerry Taylor and colleagues. The entire field of neonatology grew from the vision that perhaps an infant born too soon could survive with intensive care. For the past 6 decades the specialty of neonatology within the field of pediatric medicine has been increasingly successful in ensuring the survival of early born infants as young as 23 weeks post-conception through the intensive care provided in newborn intensive care units.

For the past 30 years there has been a slow and steady progression toward a more humane approach to the care of premature infants that is designed to protect their developing brains and central nervous systems while simultaneously integrating the high degree of technology necessary for their survival (Als, 2003). Each infant is born into a family, and only the mother who has given birth can define that family for the professionals in the newborn intensive care unit. Family members are acknowledged and recognized as primary caregivers and long-term advocates. ...