Clinical review highlights barriers to bonding in neonatal intensive care units, emphasizing the need to support parental identity and reduce caregiver stress.
A study I reviewed for this issue focused on the need to help parents with stress when their baby is in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) published a long article detailing the importance of “parent identity” which can be difficult to develop in the NICU. They need to bond with their baby, who may be in an isolette, unable to be even be touched, much less held, surrounded by wires. It's far from what the parents, and especially the mom, envisioned. But it's important to let them develop this identity.
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Alison Knopf (2026) studied this question.
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