Touch at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in caring for neonates in an incubator

Abstract

The importance of touch in promoting optimal neonatal development and positive parent infant attachment relationships has long been recognised by nurses at the NICU. Despite of this, neonates at the NICU were found to receive multiple tactile stimulations that were more related to routine procedures. In light of this, this small-scale, descriptive, observational research study aimed at investigating the use of touch at the NICU in caring for neonates in an incubator. A sample of healthcare professionals and parents caring for 4 preterm and 4 term infants were selected using stratified random sampling and convenience sampling, respectively. Two adapted and structured observational tools and field notes were utilised in this research study. The findings of this study suggested that healthcare professionals performed more routine contacts that were typically treatment-oriented in nature, as well as activities of daily living. Moreover, very few contacts comprised affectional touch. On the other hand, parents were more focused on delivering loving touch to their infants. Moreover, the number of indirect parental contacts with neonates was on the higher side than the number of direct contacts. The message is clear. There needs to be more energy invested in the training of healthcare professionals, current and future healthcare students and parents, thus enabling them to become more aware of the beneficial effects that positive tactile stimulation offers. Moreover, healthcare professionals need to encourage parents to participate more in the care of their siblings on the NICU. Education needs to be extended not only to healthcare professionals but also to parents, thus helping them understand more the benefits that touch, with emphasis on kangaroo care, offers, especially to the parent-infant bonding process. Further research on larger and more diverse scales, need to be driven in this field of care. The most important, though, remains the application of findings from research studies into practice, thus helping to bridge the theory-practice gap.