Introduction: Preterm delivery is the most common complication in pregnancy. Physiological features of premature babies are maintained in an incubator in the Neonatal intensive care unit. The birth of premature babies can result in parents as tremendous experience of guilt, fear and powerlessness. They are separated from their children, they depend on doctors and nurses. We can mitigate the stress and re-assure the bond between children and parents with timely identification of their psychological status and providing emotional support, with the right interventions and techniques. Purpose: The purpose of the thesis was to explore how parents cope with premature birth, to identify techniques for effective communication between parents and medical staff, providing emotional support and information on the status of the newborn child. Methods: In this thesis, we used descriptive method with a systematic review of the literature. When searching, we used a time frame, from 2005 to 20016. The literature was searched in English. We used the phrases: premature children, intensive therapy of newborns, parental stress, communication, health care. The analysis included 20 articles. Results: The emotional distress of mothers of premature babies is higher. Source of stress already comes from unpreparedness to child birth. Separation of the child from the mother results in the feeling that they have not become mothers, additional stress, depression, insomnia and subsequent fatigue. Nurses play an important role. In addition to the medical care of premature babies, they must also provide an emotional support to family members. Discussion and conclusion: The progress of medicine allows the survival of extremely premature born babies, and that also results in long hospitalization. Mothers and other family members mental health is disregarded in many times and pushed into the background. Nurses awareness how parents react with having premature babies could be treated with proper communication and techniques to reduce their post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety and other psychological problems. This would improve the quality of life of parents even at the time of hospitalization.
|