Anita Lundqvist

Objective: Kangaroo Care (KC) is an evidence-based nursing practice with many benefits for infants and parents. The purpose of this study was to describe parents’ experience of information and communication mediated by staff nurses before and during KC at neonatal wards. Methodology and Participants: A qualitative study with semi-structured interviews was performed. The sample consisted of 20 parents. Results: The results show that the information and communication were experienced as both optimal and suboptimal including following categories: initially conflicting emotions in relation to KC, participation and confidence in KC is evolving, strengthening preparation and context is decisive as well as parental sense and caution. The overall theme was that good preparation will contribute to a positive experience of KC. Conclusion: The conclusion is that most of the parents had positive experiences of KC. The information and communication from the staff nurses encouraged and motivated the parents to practice KC, in a sense that it was a natural way to get to know the infant, when the staff nurses were well versed in the method and coherent and supportive. Conflicting emotions emerged when staff nurses practised KC as a routine without deeper knowledge and skills of the method and its advantages as well as without sensitivity to parents’ vulnerable situation.

The number of new cases of type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) has increased substantially in recent years and it is now one of the most common long-term endocrine disorders in childhood. In Sweden the child and family are hospitalised in accordance with the national guidelines for one to two weeks at diagnosis. The purpose of this study was to describe parents’ perceptions of the educational process when their child is newly diagnosed with T1DM.

An ultrasound examination is an important confirmation of the pregnancy and is accepted without reflection to any prenatal diagnostic aspects. An abnormal finding often comes unexpectedly and is a shock for the parents. The aim was to generate a theoretical understanding of parents' experiences of the situation when their fetus is found to have an abnormality at a routine ultrasound examination.

Worldwide, insulin-dependent type 1 diabetes is one of the most frequently diagnosed long-term endocrine disorders found in children and the incidences of this diseased is still increasing. In Sweden the routines are, according to national guidelines, when the child is diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, the child and its family remains at the hospital for about two weeks. There is limited knowledge about how a diabetes team handles a child and its family from admission to discharge, therefore the purpose of this study was to seek a deeper understanding of how the diabetes team's parent/child education process works, from admission to discharge, among families with a child newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.

Since the 1990s, numerous studies on the relationship between parents and their children have been reported on in the literature and implemented as a philosophy of care in most paediatric units. The purpose of this article is to understand the process of nurses' care for children in a paediatric setting by using Noddings's caring ethics theory. Noddings's theory is in part described from a theoretical perspective outlining the basic idea of the theory followed by a critique of her work. Important conceptions in her theory are natural caring (reception, relation, engrossment, motivational displacement, reciprocity) and ethical caring (physical self, ethical self, and ethical ideal). As a nurse one holds a duty of care to patients and, in exercising this duty, the nurse must be able to develop a relationship with the patient including giving the patient total authenticity in a ‘feeling with’ the patient. Noddings's theory is analysed and described in three examples from the paediatrics. In the first example, the nurse cared for the patient in natural caring while in the second situation, the nurse strived for the ethical caring of the patient. In the third example, the nurse rejected the impulse to care and deliberately turned her back to ethics and abandoned her ethical caring. According to the Noddings's theory, caring for the patient enables the nurse to obtain ethical insights from the specific type of nursing care which forms an important contribution to an overall increase of an ethical consciousness in the nurse.

Human dignity is grounded in basic human attributes such as life and self-respect. When people cannot stand up for themselves they may lose their dignity towards themselves and others. The aim of this study was to elucidate if dignity remains intact for family members during care procedures in a children’s hospital. A qualitative approach was adopted, using open non-participation observation. The findings indicate that dignity remains intact in family-centred care where all concerned parties encourage each other in a collaborative relationship. Dignity is shattered when practitioners care from their own perspective without seeing the individual in front of them. When there is a break in care, family members can restore their dignity because the interruption helps them to master their emotions. Family members’ dignity is shattered and remains damaged when they are emotionally overwhelmed; they surrender themselves to practitioners’ care, losing their self-esteem and self-respect.

Background: Healthcare professionals disagree about admitting family members into the resuscitation room.

To illuminate the lived experience of women facing the threat of lossing their newborn child and then experiencing the reality of their infant's death. Sixteen women were interviewed approximately 2 years after the death of their infant using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach. The main theme was ambivalent transition into motherhood. The women went through the whole life-span of their infant during a very short time. The women's narratives were interpreted as broken expectations, total confusion, reality awareness, consciously leave-taking, and elusive grief. Women need the opportunity to evolve their own patterns and rhythms in the ambivalent transition from expected motherhood to experiencing neonatal dying and death. Knowledge about the individuality of this process may assist nurses in improving the quality of care.