Hospitalized newborns: the parents experience

Abstract

This paper investigates parents’ experiences during their newborns’ hospitalization. It is a qualitative study. It takes place at Neonatal Care Unit of a School Hospital in Porto Alegre. The research subjects are parents of newborns placed in this Unit. The analysis process generates three topics: “Perceiving the baby’s hospitalization as something difficult to experience”, “Living the necessity of getting support”, and “Living disease in a hospital”. The importance of this work consists of articulating the elements which are present in parents’ experiences, making possible a continuous nursing care with family valorization, specially through listening and supporting.