Infant journal

Current issue: November 2020

Embrace: supporting the health and wellbeing of our staff

Embrace is a busy paediatric and neonatal transport service for Yorkshire and the Humber. Our activity is constant due to the wide range of patients we move, totalling over 2,200 transfers per year with a mix of intensive care transfers and repatriations. Evidence is emerging about the effects on staff mental health and coping abilities in an intensive care environment¹ and over the last few years we have focused on the mental and physical wellbeing of our staff. This article describes the measures we have put in place at Embrace to support health and wellbeing in our work place.

Health visitor’s role in supporting sick and preterm babies and their families

As nurses or midwives with additional training in specialist community public health, health visitors are in a unique position to provide support for families of babies who have spent time on NNUs, but consistent health visitor support is not universally available. We decided to investigate this with the aim of developing materials to support health visitors and parents through the initial transition period from the NNU to home.

Exposure to noise during neonatal transport and its impact on hearing

Very low birth weight infants and neonatal intensive care unit survivors have a well-recognised increased risk of hearing loss. Neonatal units and especially neonatal transportation are acknowledged as sources of excessive noise. Although noise is well recognised as a cause of hearing loss in adults, there is paucity of data in neonates. In this study we measure the noise level exposure to babies during inter-hospital transfer and assess any associated hearing loss over this period.

Effects of interactive behavioural cues-based massage on hyperbilirubinaemia, breastfeeding and growth of term infants

Infant massage is indicated for increased weight gain and improved neurodevelopment in term and preterm infants. In addition, massage therapy has been known to decrease bilirubin levels and promote stool frequency in term infants and improve self-confidence in new mothers. This study evaluates the effects of an interactive behavioural cues-based infant massage programme on admission rates for hyperbilirubinaemia, frequency of breastfeeding and the growth of healthy term infants. The findings suggest that training mothers to identify infant behaviour cues has beneficial effects.

Full articles available from the current issue ...

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From the November 2018 edition

FREE A two-year comparative study of admissions of term neonates for hypoglycaemia: what have the BAPM recommendations changed?

Hypoglycaemia is a leading cause of term admissions to neonatal units but many term babies admitted for hypoglycaemia could be cared for in an alternative hospital or community setting. The British Association of Perinatal Medicine (BAPM) Framework for Practice aims to reduce national variation in detection and management of term babies with hypoglycaemia. The study presented here compares the epidemiology of neonatal hypoglycaemia in term neonates admitted to a tertiary neonatal intensive care unit for a one-year period before and after implementation of a BAPM recommendations-based guideline.

FREE Cutting tongue ties may not help infants to breastfeed

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Current issue: November 2020

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