Using Digital Storytelling to Reduce Unplanned Health Care Encounters: A Feasibility Study.

Background: There is a growing body of literature establishing digital storytelling as an efficacious strategy to improve hypertension outcomes. The purpose of this nurse-led project was to explore the use of digital storytelling to reduce unplanned health care encounters and to determine whether the approach was feasible.

Problem: Half of adults in the United States have hypertension.

The influence of early-term birth on NICU admission, length of stay, and breastfeeding initiation and duration.

Objective: To examine hospitalization and breastfeeding (BF) experiences for early-term (ET) and full-term (FT) infants to determine if differences existed between them.

Design: Retrospective descriptive cohort study.

Setting: United States 2009.

Early term birth: understanding the health risks to infants.

Early term birth, which occurs at 37 to 38 weeks gestation, is often elective and can carry significant health risks to infants, including short-term and long-term health outcomes. Nurses and other health care providers involved in the care of pregnant women and infants need to be aware of these infants' physiologic vulnerability and potential short- term and long-term care requirements. Nurses can educate patients and raise awareness of the risks associated with early term birth.