34^th World Neonatal, Pediatric and Family Medicine Conference

Neonatal Nursing

Neonatal nursing is a care for newborn babies up to 28 days after birth. The term neonatal comes from neo means "new" and natal means "hereditary or origin". Nursing  of infants requires high skills, dedication and emotional strength for caring, dealing with various problems with prematurity, birth defects, infection, cardiac malfunctions and surgical defects etc. they are essential part of neonatal care team and are required to know basic newborn rejuvenation ,one should be able to control the babies temperature and know how to work with cardiopulmonary and pulse oximetry and its monitoring. Mostly such nurses care for infants by the time of child birth until they are discharged from hospital.

Approximately 40,000 infants in America born with less weight. Neonatal nurse, will generally care for a number of patients in the NICU, operate high-tech neonatal machines and look after the administration of intravenous (IV) medications. They help with the developmental areas of growth, social and emotional health and well-being also providing education to families on how to prevent further illness and manage ongoing health conditions of infant. They could also help transition babies to go home and sometimes with further in-home medical assistance.

The first premature infant incubator station was introduced In 1898 by Dr. Joseph DeLee in Chicago at Illinois. In 1952 Dr. Virginia Apgar introduced Apgar score scoring system for the evaluation a newborn's condition and problems if any. The first newborn intensive care unit (NICU) was opened in 1965 at new haven and in 1975 the American Board of Pediatrics entrenched certification for neonatology and pediatrics.

The advancement of 1950s brought a flying growth in neonatal services by introducing mechanical ventilation of the newborn. This allowed the survival of smaller and smaller newborns. In the 1980s, the development of pulmonary surfactant replacement therapy improved the survival of extremely premature infants and decreased chronic lung disease. In 2006 newborns weighed as small as 450 grams and delivered with as early as 22 weeks gestation have a chance of survival. In modern NICUs, infants weighing more than 1000 grams and born after 27 weeks gestation have an approximately 90% chance of survival and majority have normal neurological development.