Severe Intrauterine Growth Retardation: Developmental Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) Care

The developmental care model aims to create a relationship-based developmentally supportive care environment for the preterm infant and family. The theory proposes that care implementation that takes into account infants' thresholds of disorganization is most supportive of long term outcome. Specifically, the intervention consisted of weekly neurobehavioral observations and reports of the experimental group infants' behavior with suggestions for parents and staff in ways to support each infant's development. The developmental specialists observed each infant's behavior throughout hospitalization and to 2 weeks corrected age and formulated descriptive neurobehavioral reports with suggestions to structure caregiving procedures adapted to the infant's sleep/wake cycle and in support of the infant's well-regulated behavioral balance. Parents were supported to care for their infant, encouraged to nurse and hold their infant skin-to-skin, and to cradle them during stressful procedures.