title: Infant Medical Trauma in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (IMTN): A Proposed Concept for Science and Practice.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Trauma is an innately subjective experience ensuing from a deeply distressing event. Research has demonstrated that while the environment of the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is capable of providing extraordinary lifesaving measures following birth, the experience may be disruptive to several key aspects of early development, placing infants at risk for adverse behavioral, cognitive, and emotional outcomes.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This article provides rationale for the concept of Infant Medical Trauma in the NICU (IMTN) as a means of describing this unique stress experience. A triad of cumulative early life NICU experiences (stress, parental separation, and pain) is proposed to influence an infant's swinging neurodevelopmental pendulum amid the potential outcomes of risk and resilience.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Creating language that describes the infant experience brings meaning and calls caregivers and parents to action to consider strategies that may improve long-term health. Actively seeking opportunities to decrease the allostatic load of at-risk infants may support an infant's pendulum to swing toward a path of resilience, thereby moderating his or her early life adverse experience.
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing, University of Connecticut, Storrs (Drs D'Agata, Young, Cong, and McGrath); Connecticut Children's Medical Center, Hartford (Dr McGrath); School of Medicine, University of Connecticut, Farmington (Drs Young and Grasso); and College of Nursing, University of South Florida, Tampa (Dr D'Agata).
authors.forename: Amy L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: DʼAgata
authors.forename: Erin E
authors.initials: EE
authors.lastname: Young
authors.forename: Xiaomei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Cong
authors.forename: Damion J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Grasso
authors.forename: Jacqueline M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: McGrath
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological; D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D002657:Child Development; D005260:Female; D006272:Health Facility Environment; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007363:Intensive Care Units, Neonatal; D008297:Male; D013312:Stress, Physiological; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000209:etiology* / Q000517:prevention & control*