The lived experience of infants in neonatal intensive care – part one

Neonatal intensive care units (NICU) provide specialist care to infants who are born prematurely or medically unwell. The skills and knowledge of neonatal staff, combined with medical technologies, provide extraordinary lifesaving measures for critically unwell infants. But when an infant is admitted to the NICU, there is an inevitable disruption to their early experiences of connection and care. Infants and their parents will have to adapt to the stressors of the hospital environment. They will also need to navigate the uncertainty of what this experience means for their future physical, social, emotional and cognitive development and wellbeing.  

In the first episode of this two-part podcast series, neonatologist Dr Natalie Duffy shines a spotlight on the key infant mental health concepts that guided her PHD research into the lived experience of infants in NICU. Natalie speaks about how reflecting and making meaning of infant cues and communication enabled a deeper understanding of their lived experience for parents and health professionals. It is Natalie’s hope that these richer understandings can inform practice and bring about change to the way neonatal care is delivered. She also hopes to provide practitioners with insight into what infants and families encounter during this unexpected start to bonding and parenting.  

In this episode, you will learn about: 

• neurodevelopmental vulnerabilities for pre-term or medically unwell infants [01:58] 

• the emotional impacts and adjustment for parents of infants in NICU [4:35]  

• families’ resilience and the power of connection and relationships for infants’ mental health and development [8:07] 

• the importance of family-centred care in NICU [11:31] 

• how infants have a voice (despite not having words) and the ways they use their behaviours, cues and states of alertness to communicate what they are thinking and feeling [18:23]  

Further information and resources:

Upcoming webinar 

What are infants telling us: From neonatal nursery care to supporting optimal infant development 

Online courses 

Practice strategies suite for infants and toddlers 

Keeping the infant and toddler in mind 

Journal articles 

A study of the infant’s lived experience of neonatal intensive care 

The newborn behavioural observations system: A relationship-building intervention to support families in the neonatal intensive care unit 

The lived experiences of critically ill infants hospitalised in neonatal intensive care: A scoping review