Introduction of triggers for palliative care consultation improves utilization and satisfaction within a level four NICU.

Objective: We sought to explore the beliefs regarding palliative care team utilization, as well as increase consultation and awareness of the palliative care team's role in the NICU.

Study Design: The study design in this Level 4 NICU included observational time series with multiple planned sequential interventions. Medical chart review was conducted to determine eligibility, and statistical process control charts were used to show performance over time.

Teaching the Art of Difficult Family Conversations.

Context: Difficult family conversations are a challenge for even the most seasoned clinicians. Teaching the skills of successful communication between providers, family members, and patients is a vital component of medical education. However, traditional teaching methods using didactics and expert role modeling are often inadequate.

Forgotten parent: NICU paternal emotional response.

Purpose: To evaluate and compare the presence of perceived paternal stress and depressive symptomatology in fathers of preterm infants over time.

Subjects: Fathers of NICU infants born before 30 weeks of gestation.

Design: Prospective convenience sample.

Stress in fathers of surgical neonatal intensive care unit babies.

The purpose of this study was to identify and measure components of perceived stress in fathers of infants in a surgical neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). The Parent Stressor Scale: Infant Hospitalization (PSS:IH) was used to assess perceived stress in 22 fathers. Paternal stress was highest in the domains of "Parental Role Alteration" and "Infant Appearance and Behavior.

Ghrelin and cholecystokinin in term and preterm human breast milk.

Aim: To determine whether ghrelin and cholecystokinin (CCK) are present in significant quantities in term and preterm human breast milk, and to identify their source.

Methods: Samples were collected from 10 mothers who delivered term infants and 10 mothers who delivered preterm infants. Estimated fat content was measured.

Short-term use of umbilical artery catheters may not be associated with increased risk for thrombosis.

Objective: Umbilical arterial catheters (UACs) have rare but serious complications related to thrombus formation. Two specific serum markers of thrombogenesis--prothrombin fragment (F1.2) and thrombin-antithrombin (TAT)--can be assayed and correlated with abdominal ultrasound visualization of UAC thrombosis.

Family reactions during infants' hospitalization in the neonatal intensive care unit.

The purpose of this investigation is to assess family stress, coping, perceptions of their infant, and alterations in mood that may result from the hospitalization of their critically ill newborn infant. Eligible patients were those infants hospitalized in the Special Care Nursery (SCN) at Christiana Care Health Services, who were born up to 31 weeks' gestational age. Twenty-seven families (mothers and/or fathers) completed four questionnaires at 2-week intervals during the course of their premature infants' hospitalization.