Background & Aims: Premature or low birthweight infants and neonates who need special care (respiratory distress, apnea) are usually admitted to Intensive Care Unit (NICU). The infants should have discharging conditions and parents should acquire sufficient preparedness before going home. Very low birthweight infants and premature ones are expected to have more complications than others.
Materials & Methods: Babies stayed at NICU for at least 7 days. Levels of parental preparedness for discharging in first days after hospitalization and on discharging day were investigated according to the questionnaire. Then infants were followed up for 3 months.
Results: The average levels of prenatal preparedness in first days after hospitalizing and on discharging day were calculated 15.38 and 24.19. And 43% of neonates were girls and 57% were boys. As said above, they were followed up for 3 months. The results show that 105 cases (86.6%) were apparently normal, 11 cases (9%) had mild developmental delay, 1 case had mild hydrocephaly, and 1 case had severed hydrocephaly. Heart disease was observed in 1 case and 2 cases (1.7 %) died.
Conclusions: In this study, level of prenatal preparedness after training by nurses, had significant statistic value compared with the primary preparedness (P<0.001). Patients that were followed up frequently had normal development. Readmission happened in 25.6% of the cases. And the most common reasons of readmission to hospital were anemia and apnea. Following up children for 30 months, determines mental and other developmental disturbances better.

Keywords: Neonatal Intensive care Unit, nurse, education

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