[How do parents experience the premature birth of their child?]

Abstract

Advising and guidance of parents of premature children represent an important field of care activity in paediatrics. Nursing personnel are expected to react appropriately and competently to the needs and problematic situations of parents of prematurely born children. Only a restricted basis of sound knowledge is available for the fulfilment of this demanding task. The aim and purpose of the following literature analysis is to collect the knowledge currently available and to make it available to nursing, in theory and practice, in a concise form. In this way, the tasks of nursing personnel in this field can be formulated and future training content can be defined in more detail. Several data banks and the keyword catalogue of the University and Regional Library of Münster and the Central Library for Medicine in Cologne were consulted using the key term "premature birth" and various combinations of terms. A look at the research results makes it clear that the perspective of nursing researchers is particularly restricted to the immediately present and acute problem situations of children and parents during the period of the postnatal stay in hospital. There are only very few studies -that inquire into long-term effects in the parents' experiencing and overcoming of the premature birth. The following literature study shows that mothers in particular display intense emotional reactions as a result of a premature birth. These emotions are expressed in the form of fear concerning the disablement or death of the child as well as in feelings of physical inadequacy and incomplete self-realisation. In view of the life-long increased morbidity of prematurely born children and the hospital stays related to it, nursing personnel could benefit from developing specific insight into and understanding for the difficult life situation of parents of a prematurely born child. Regarding the present state of research, it is striking that the aspects of how the parents of premature children come to terms with their problem situations have to date been predominantly investigated via standardized processes.