Sometimes studies only confirm something that our common sense already told us. Fortunately, I have not experienced a similar situation, but I understand the tension, worry and traumatic experience that should mean leaving a sick or premature newborn in the hospital intensive care unit. The loneliness that can be felt without the necessary support from friends, family and, of course, the medical team.
In order to understand a little more the experiences lived by these fathers and mothers, 3 Canadian researchers have conducted a study published in the journal Pediatrics. They followed 16 parents of very sick or premature children who were in neonatal ICUs, collecting information on various aspects. Your level of comfort, your main concerns, communication with hospital staff, access to information about your children and other general insights about the ICU experience.
The results clearly pointed to a feeling of lack of control over the situation. What parents valued most was, apart from the contact at these times with friends and family, the direct communication with the medical team. They considered the support of coherent medical information to be very supportive, also through brief written reports that would clarify the general condition of babies.
The main conclusion of the study, therefore, confirms that parents experience a feeling of lack of control when they have a newborn baby in the ICU. Specific activities as simple as those listed would help to regain that sense of control and to feel what they are after all: parents, protectors and babies' partners.
In short, a more humanized and personalized attention that certainly is missing on certain occasions (and yes I can speak from my own experience in the case of hospitalization of elderly relatives) and that it becomes much more necessary in the event that our helpless baby is affected. Hopefully this research will serve to give a boost to those supports so simple that fortunately they take into consideration more and more professionals.
