Read your baby: A follow-up intervention program for parents with NICU infants

✍ Scribed by Perry M. Butterfield; Linda Miller

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1984
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 586 KB
• Volume: 5
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0163-9641
• DOI: 10.1002/1097-0355(198422)5:2<107::aid-imhj2280050206>3.0.co;2-p

✦ Synopsis

An intervention model designed to provide education and support to parents of sick or preterm infants throughout their first year of life is described. The intervention focused on helping parents communicate more skillfully with their infant and encouraging parents to maximize their infant's participation in the family system. Seventeen medium-risk infants received intervention; another seventeen served as controls. Independent evaluations of all families at 12 months adjusted age revealed that intervention babies were significantly advanced on Bayley Scales of Infant Development and Mastery Motivation tasks and that their mothers viewed them as easier to care for and less irritable.

INTR 0 D UCTION

Most preterm infants today fall within normal limits on follow-up developmental tests. However, infants who experience perinatal complications continue to be overrepresented among groups of children with learning and behavior problems in school (Maryland Preschool Screening, 1979) and in reported cases of failure to thrive and child abuse (Elmer & Gregg, 1967; Veitze, Falsey, O'Connor, Sandler, Sherrod, & Altemeier, 1980; Koops & Harmon, 1980). For many of these infants, such problems may not be due to perinatal insult but rather to the unsuccessful adaptation of parents to such a unique infant (Sameroff, 1975; Werner, Bieriman, & French, 1971).

A successful care-giving environment requires a process of change for both parent and child (Sandler, 1969). Throughout the first year, a mother must This research was supported by the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation and the Colorado Chapter of the March of Dimes Foundation.