Parenting the post-NICU premature infant.

The birth of a premature infant is stressful for family members who must adjust to unfamiliar surroundings, learn new vocabularies, cope with the infant's uncertain survival and outcome, maintain vigilance at the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), and eventually assume care for a recovering infant at home. Nursing research has focused on many issues related to parenting prematurely born infants, including parenting during the initial hospitalization, concerns of mothers about infant discharge, the relationship between premature infants and their mothers during the first 2 years after hospital discharge, the quality of the home environment on premature infant outcomes, parenting after the first 2 years, and interventions to improve parenting. This article focuses on research about parenting the post-NICU discharge infant to assist nurses in giving comprehensive, evidence-based care.