Developmental Care Within the Neonatal Intensive care unit Essay

Developmental Care Within the Neonatal Intensive care unit - Essay Example Developmental care also calls for clustering of nursing care for instance carrying out blood pressure and temperature checks to ensure that the babies have longer periods for sleeping. The other strategies used in neonatal intensive care entails turning down the lights in the rooms and providing a quite and dark environment to ensure that infants are able to enjoy maximum sleeping time. In neonatal intensive care, parents are encouraged to visit the infants and adoption of kangaroo care. By adopting developmental care in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs), premature and sick child are able to make a smooth transition from the environment they were enjoying in the womb to the world easily (Abbott and Israel, 2008, p. 80). The area of developmental care within NICUs has been addressed by various bodies that authors and stakeholders in the sector. This paper will be a critical review of the various publications on the topic including a journal by Hamilton, Moore and Naylor; the Bliss initiative by Abbott and Israel and a journal by Sonya Louise. In addition, the paper will critically review the provisions under the Bliss Baby Charter, the Neonatal Toolkit and the British Association of Perinatal Medicine of 2010. Developmental care According to Hamilton, Moore and Naylor (2008, p. 190), developmental care should create a framework within which neonatal care processes are adapted and organised to ensure that they are able to support individual medical, developmental and psychological needs of premature infants and their families. Developmental care has been necessitated by the fact that despite the relentless efforts to prevent premature births; such births are still persistent recurrent with about 6 percent of all lives in UK being preterm in UK annually and these statistics are higher in USA where they are estimated to be 12 percent (Hamilton, Moore and Naylor, 2008, p. 190). Consequently, the demand for neonatal care has increased with more than 70 percent of NICUs admissions resulting from premature infants. In addition to the high costs of providing neonatal care among preterm infants, such infants experience developmental impairments compared to their counterparts. This is explained by the fact that the brain of preterm infants is usually undergoing rapid development and these kids are exposed to a strange environmental setting, repeated invasive assessments and protracted illness (Hamilton, Moore and Naylor, 2008, p. 190). This adversely affects their growth and organisation of hearing, vision and sleeping pattern having long term effects on the neuro-development of the infant. Developmental care exposes parents and premature infants to various stressors and negative feelings for instance guilt, anxiety, helplessness and depression (Hamilton, Moore and Naylor, 2008, p. 190). This is because the highly technical setting and the condition of the premature infant led to the disruption of parental roles and reduces parent-infant relatio nship. To deal with this problems Hamilton, Moore and Naylor (2008, p. 190) proposes the adoption of supportive care to optimise the development and reduce negative impacts of premature births. In light of this, developmental care must involve a range of interventions that will help reduce stress within NUICs including controlling the