Dear friends, this coming Wed., Jan 8, our NICU Family Care Coordinator and I will be testing for NIDCAP (Neonatal Individualized Developmental Care Assessment Program) "reliability" with our sweet trainer, Linda Lutes. This is the program that was "birthed" by Heidielise Als, the "mother" of developmental care. My goal is to integrate developmental care into all aspects of patient care - watching for stress cues during assessments, diaper changes, procedures, and feedings. Our unit has come a LONG way in implementing interventions to reduce our tiny patients' stress levels, so that their supplemental oxygen needs will decrease faster, and to promote better tolerance of feedings and procedures, and to decrease incidence of intraventricular hemorrhage(IVH). Incorporating this approach during assistance with breastfeeding allows the baby to organize his physical and emotional state so that he/she is not stressed during the process, thereby associating negative feelings with breastfeeding. This also assists the babies to regulate their heart rate and breathing. I said all that to say this... those of you who are praying people, please say a prayer for Karen and myself for this test. We will all be performing an observation assessment on the same infant at the same time, and Karen and I must match our trainer's assessment within @85% range. Our NICU parents generally are hungry for this developmental information on their infants, and if Karen and I pass reliability it will enable us to go forward in training our staff more extensively for the sake of our patients. Any of you out there who have already done this - any words of wisdom?
Regards,
Dani HudspethBSN, RN, IBCLC
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