The care by parent unit. A tool for decreasing anxiety in mothers of high risk infants.
The delivery of a premature infant, especially one of very low birth weight, represents a crisis for a family. Bidder et al. have determined through a series of interviews that mothers of preterm infants are anxious at two particular points in their infant's neonatal course: the time of birth and the time of discharge. The Care By Parent Unit (CBPU) was developed at Hermann Hospital in Houston, Texas, to provide a transition from the specialized care of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) to home and to aid the parents in viewing their infant as a normal, "safe" child to take home. To evaluate the impact of a CBPU on maternal anxiety, the mothers' responses before and after the CBPU experience were evaluated.
D001007:Anxiety; D005260:Female; D006746:Hospital Bed Capacity, 500 and over; D006801:Humans; D007224:Infant Care / Q000379:methods*; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007363:Intensive Care Units, Neonatal; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology*; D010351:Patient Discharge; D013781:Texas