OBSERVATIONS ON UNRESTRICTED PARENTAL CONTACT WITH INFANTS IN NEONATAL INTENSIVE-CARE UNIT

To assess whether parents of infants in the neonatal intensive care unit undergo prolonged stress and whether the stress is aggravated by the present policy of encouraging close parental contact in the neonatal period, parents of infants who stayed in the Premature-Newborn Special Care unit 2 wk or longer during 1974 were surveyed regarding the medical, social, financial and psychological problems they experienced during their infants'' hospitalization. Based on the responses, numerical scores were developed in 4 areas: parental anxiety; parental contact; parental reaction to the nursery environment; and infant morbidity. The degree of parental anxiety correlated with the degree of infant''s illness, the quantity and quality of parental contact with the infant, and the level of parental reaction to the nursery environment. Despite the associated anxiety, parents maintained high levels of contact with their infants and would be opposed to restricted visiting hours or restricted contact with their infants. Even when the infants died, the parents did not regret the amount of time spent with their infants.