Pediatrics and Neonatal Nursing

Purpose: The high-risk parental experience in the neonatal intensive care environment is a major stress event that is not necessarily resolved with discharge. Many parents report “walking on eggshells” with worry and stress for up to a year beyond the birth of their infant. Because stressors can induce behavioral, physiological, and biochemical changes to such a degree that family adaptation is challenged, attempting to resolve stressors before the discharge should be a goal. The ethical concept of beneficence (doing good) provides the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) nurse with a framework for wanting to lower stressors as much as possible prior to discharge. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between high-risk experiences including high-risk pregnancies, deliveries, and NICU admissions and unresolved parental stress up to a year after delivery. Method: Women in a day care center with infants under a year old were tested for their emotional status and pregnancy related demographics. Principal Results: Findings show a positive correlation between two factors, both NICU admission of a newborn and parental stress (r=.88) and a high risk primiparous births without NICU admissions and parental stress (r=.72). Major Conclusion: While this is a pilot study, the findings illustrate unresolved parental stress well beyond the birth of the baby, providing ethical support for early identification of stressed parents and interventions to normalize that stress before discharge. When parents report significant stress after their deliveries or infants’ NICU admissions, and there is no specific intervention to identify and reduce this stress, high levels of stress may last and be measurable even a year later.