(Supplement)/Focus on Pediatrics-Small Infant Program focuses on education
Parents learn new baby care and high-risk skills
The Small Infant Program at Mt. Washington Pediatric Hospital in Baltimore provides a segue from the intensive care unit to a normal environment so families with premature or low birth weight babies can prepare for discharge. It is a time for parental bonding with and nurturing of the infant as well as a time for education.
"Part of the goal of this program is to introduce the families into a lower-intensity environment before they go home and really concentrate on parent education during that time," says Kay Mathias, RNC, NNP, nurse practitioner for the Small Infant Program.
When babies are referred to the program from hospitals throughout the Baltimore area, parents receive an education list upon admission. Included on that list is basic newborn care, which they were unable to learn when their baby was in intensive care. Nurses teach parents how to give a newborn a bath, how to take the baby's temperature, how to dress the baby properly, and child safety such as the proper use of a car seat. Parents also learn how to administer any medications the baby will go home on, and the signs and symptoms of illness that would warrant a physician's care.
"Child life usually tries to meet with the family to go over normal developmental ranges for the next couple of months," says Mathias. Child life will also do tests to see how the infant handles certain kinds of stress a full-term baby might easily tolerate, such as a lot of movement. This information is then passed along to the parents.
Parents of the high-risk infants are also asked to take a class on infant CPR that is available to all parents who have babies at the hospital on a volunteer basis.
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