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Infant Medical Trauma in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (IMTN): A Proposed Concept for Science and Practice
- Source :
- Advances in neonatal care : official journal of the National Association of Neonatal Nurses. 16(4)
- Publication Year :
- 2016
-
Abstract
- Trauma is an innately subjective experience ensuing from a deeply distressing event. Research has demonstrated that while the environment of the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is capable of providing extraordinary lifesaving measures following birth, the experience may be disruptive to several key aspects of early development, placing infants at risk for adverse behavioral, cognitive, and emotional outcomes.This article provides rationale for the concept of Infant Medical Trauma in the NICU (IMTN) as a means of describing this unique stress experience. A triad of cumulative early life NICU experiences (stress, parental separation, and pain) is proposed to influence an infant's swinging neurodevelopmental pendulum amid the potential outcomes of risk and resilience.Creating language that describes the infant experience brings meaning and calls caregivers and parents to action to consider strategies that may improve long-term health. Actively seeking opportunities to decrease the allostatic load of at-risk infants may support an infant's pendulum to swing toward a path of resilience, thereby moderating his or her early life adverse experience.
- Subjects :
- Male
medicine.medical_specialty
Neonatal intensive care unit
business.industry
Infant, Newborn
General Medicine
Child development
Adaptation, Physiological
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Child Development
Stress, Physiological
030225 pediatrics
Critical care nursing
Intensive Care Units, Neonatal
Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health
Adaptation, Psychological
Health Facility Environment
medicine
Humans
Female
Intensive care medicine
business
030217 neurology & neurosurgery
Stress, Psychological
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 15360911
- Volume :
- 16
- Issue :
- 4
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Advances in neonatal care : official journal of the National Association of Neonatal Nurses
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....5f2ff2787968713e03613615620cbd7f