scholarly journals Too Expensive to Treat? Non-Treatment Decisions at the Margins of Viability

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 461-481
Author(s):  
Tatiana Flessas ◽  
Emily Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Intensive Care Unit ◽  
Intensive Care ◽  
Neonatal Intensive Care Unit ◽  
Premature Infant ◽  
Neonatal Intensive Care ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Treatment Decisions ◽  
Educational Needs ◽  
The State ◽  
Premature Babies

Abstract This article seeks to challenge the assumption that it is legitimate to consider the costs of premature babies’ future social and educational needs when deciding what treatment, if any, to provide in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) . It questions the elision that is made between the claim that a particular treatment is insufficiently cost-effective and the claim that a person will be a burden on the state in the future. It discusses a series of common misunderstandings about how treatment decisions are taken in the NICU and concludes by suggesting that the claim that premature babies are too expensive to treat may depend upon regarding a premature infant as if she were not yet a person, with rights and interests of her own.

scholarly journals Using a behavior analytics approach to change nursing care of extremely premature infants: A pilot study

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 14
Author(s):  
Jenn Gonya ◽  
Jessica Niski ◽  
Nicole Cistone
Keyword(s):  
Intensive Care Unit ◽  
Intensive Care ◽  
Pilot Study ◽  
Neonatal Intensive Care Unit ◽  
Premature Infant ◽  
Premature Infants ◽  
Nursing Care ◽  
Neonatal Intensive Care ◽  
Extremely Premature Infant

The neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is, inherently, a trauma environment for the extremely premature infant. This trauma is often exacerbated by nurse caregiving practices that can be modified and still remain effective. Our study explored how behavior analytics could be used to implement an intervention known as Care by Cues and how the intervention might, ultimately, impact infant physiologic stability.

Letter to the Editor

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 93 (6) ◽  
pp. 1025-1026
Author(s):  
Helen Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Intensive Care Unit ◽  
Intensive Care ◽  
Neonatal Intensive Care Unit ◽  
Neonatal Intensive Care ◽  
Ethics Committees ◽  
Disability Rights ◽  
Considerable Time ◽  
Premature Babies ◽  
Support Organizations ◽  
Family Centered

The parents who drafted "The Principles For Family-Centered Neonatal Care"1 have all spent considerable time in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Most of us are parents of two or more premature babies. We are familiar with NICU families of all backgrounds through our work in support organizations, disability rights groups, and ethics committees. Our university educations may have made us better able to understand and articulate the issues, but they did not significantly alter our experience in the NICU.

scholarly journals Profile of newborns discharged from the intensive neonatal care unit submitted to the kangaroo ward

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 685
Author(s):  
Karla Camila Lima de Souza ◽  
ANNY Caroline Ferreira de Carvalho ◽  
Natália Maria Chagas Evangelista ◽  
Magnely Moura do Nascimento ◽  
Andrea Stopiglia Guedes Braide ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Intensive Care Unit ◽  
Intensive Care ◽  
Neonatal Intensive Care Unit ◽  
Gestational Age ◽  
Apgar Score ◽  
Neonatal Intensive Care ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Kangaroo Care ◽  
Microsoft Excel ◽  
Neonatal Care Unit

Background: Describe the profile of newborns discharged from the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) sent to a kangaroo ward and their neonatal variables.Methods: Retrospective and documentary study with a quantitative approach, performed at the General Hospital César Cals, whose sample consisted of 30 charts. The following variables were analyzed: weight, gestational age, Apgar score, gender, race, adequacy of the pregnancy and assistance provided in the NICU and kangaroo ward. The variables were analyzed using Microsoft Excel® 2010 program to obtain percentages.Results: There was a prevalence of extremely premature infants with high underweight and small size for the gestational age, male gender and browns, with Apgar score at 1st and 5th minutes more than 7, born by cesarean section, who used mechanical ventilation and surfactant, with prevalence of respiratory distress syndrome, with admission weight in Kangaroo ward less than 1.250g, making use of exclusive breast milk, who were attended by physiotherapy and with weight less than 1.600g at discharge, of the variables studied.Conclusions: Kangaroo care is an excellent cost-effective model for the newborn coming from the neonatal intensive care unit.

Nurses' Living Caritas Processes as Described by Mothers, Fathers, and Grandmothers in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 78-88
Author(s):  
Dawn Marie Hawthorne ◽  
Marion Turkel ◽  
Charlotte D. Barry ◽  
Lisa Flack
Keyword(s):  
Intensive Care Unit ◽  
Intensive Care ◽  
Neonatal Intensive Care Unit ◽  
Premature Infant ◽  
Neonatal Intensive Care ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Healing Environment ◽  
Loving Kindness ◽  
Qualitative Descriptive ◽  
Human Caring

Infants who are born premature require hospitalization in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). In this study, 10 parents and seven grandmothers were interviewed with the purpose of exploring their experiences of having a premature infant in the NICU being cared for by nurses whose practice was grounded in Watson's theory of human caring caritas processes. Qualitative descriptive analysis revealed expressions of the caring moment lived as an intentional presence, within the context of the caritas processes to care for the infant and family, with loving-kindness, helping trusting relationship, creating caring healing environment, and allowing for hope and miracles.

Pre and Perinatal Growth and Development: Implications of Music Benefits for Premature Infants

1998 ◽  
Vol os-31 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jayne M. Standley
Keyword(s):  
Intensive Care Unit ◽  
Intensive Care ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Neonatal Intensive Care Unit ◽  
Premature Infant ◽  
Neonatal Intensive Care ◽  
Neurological Development ◽  
Nutritive Sucking ◽  
Term Newborns

This article summarizes the current scientific knowledge on foetal and newborn neurological development and related research on beneficial uses of music with the premature infant. As technology and science advance, the survival rate of earlier and earlier premature birth increases with long-term implications for these children having impaired neurological development, delayed growth, and need for special education. Research in the neonatal intensive care unit has focused on uses of music to reduce stress, to promote homeostasis and weight gain, to reinforce non-nutritive sucking, to enhance developmental maturation, and to shorten length of hospitalization. Further, it is theorized that music benefits documented for full term newborns may also apply to the premature infant, i.e., lullabies promote language development; familiar music is recognized, reinforcing, and comforting; and infants orient to and avidly attend to music more so than other auditory stimuli. This burgeoning area of research provides exciting possibilities for the practice of music therapy in the neonatal intensive care unit and for music education in early childhood.

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