Mothering an extremely low birth weight infant.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Women experiencing a difficult pregnancy and subsequent very early birth of an extremely low birth weight (ELBW) infant suffer from guilt and grief as they try to gather themselves together to learn to mother their ELBW infant. The neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) course is tortuous and long. Attachment theories commonly describe the attachment process of mothers and newborns as the relationship grows and matures rapidly through pregnancy and birth. Mothering theory describes how mothers transition into that role in a newborn and premature infant domain. Most of the literature on mothers of premature infants describes situations involving infants most often born at greater than 1500 grams. There is a dearth of literature describing the mothering journey of mothers of ELBW infants.
The purpose of this interpretive phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of mothers of ELBW infants who are born at or less than 900 grams and usually at 27 weeks gestation or earlier. In-depth interviews were conducted with nine mothers initially on the eve of their discharge from the NICU. A subsequent phone interview was obtained some months after discharge to seek clarity and agreement of the preceding interview content. Narrative analysis was facilitated with the use of the QRS Nvivo2(c) computer program to aid narrative manipulation and coding.
The results of this study revealed two major and many minor themes. The mothers clearly uncovered what it was like to experience the phenomenon of mothering an ELBW infant and gave insight into what was important to them in their effort to learn their role of being this kind of mother and maintain their commitments. The mother-nurse relationship was uncovered, and these mothers told of what was important to them and was necessary for them to have to ease the way through their NICU experience. These mothers unveiled the importance of making connections to facilitate their journey. One important connection revealed was their need for prayer and the maintenance of their spiritual self. Other connections valued were between family, community, physicians and the nurses. Through all of their trials in the NICU these mothers never gave up "Being the Mama" and "Making Connections".