Family functioning, burden and parenting stress 2 years after very preterm birth☆
Section snippets
Patients and methods
This study used data from the Victorian Infant Brain Studies (VIBeS) cohort, a study of 227 very preterm children recruited during the neonatal period. This cohort included infants born at < 30 weeks' gestation or with a birth weight < 1250 g at the Royal Women's Hospital, Melbourne Australia, between 2001 and 2003. Term born children (inclusion criteria: born > 36 weeks' gestation, English-speaking family) were recruited at birth from the Royal Women's Hospital maternity wards (n = 46) between 2001
Sample description
Compared with families with very preterm children who completed questionnaires at 2 years, those who did not were more likely to have twins/triplets (60% of non-completers had twins/triplets versus 28% of completers, chi-squared p<.001). There was little difference on sociodemographic variables between the completers and non-completers for the term group. For families included in the study, the very preterm group had higher numbers of twins/triplets, higher social risk, and were more likely to
Discussion
Results from the current study indicated that families with very preterm children reported poorer family functioning 2 years after discharge from the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) compared with families of term born infants. While others have failed to find differences on family functioning between families with preterm and term born children at age 11 [1], the current results suggest there may be differences in family functioning at younger ages. These differences may disappear over time,
Conflict of interest statement
All authors declare they do not have any potential conflicts of interest with regards to this study.
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Personalized support of parents of extremely preterm infants before, during and after birth
2022, Seminars in Fetal and Neonatal MedicineCitation Excerpt :This loss of control over basic parenting rituals can perpetuate trauma: parents might feel like bystanders in their infant's life [22]. For some parents, symptoms of post-traumatic stress or depression can persist after a neonatal hospitalization [1–6]. Trauma-informed care analyzes how a person's past experiences interacts with and impacts their ability to cope [14,15].
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Funding: This study was funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council (Project Grant No. 237117; Senior Research Fellowship (PJA) No. 628371), The Royal Women's Hospital Research Foundation, the Brockhoff Foundation, the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, and Department of Innovation, Industry and Regional Development (Victorian Government).