The bonding with extremely preterm infants is interrupted after giving birth. The maternal emotional state and the environment of the neonatal intensive care unit limit its development. Nursing care can facilitate mother-infant bonding by encouraging communication, participation in care, massaging or breastfeeding.
Fibromyalgia is a chronic syndrome characterized by generalized pain, joint rigidity, intense fatigue, sleep alterations, headache, spastic colon, craniomandibular dysfunction, anxiety, and depression. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether massage-myofascial release therapy can improve pain, anxiety, quality of sleep, depression, and quality of life in patients with fibromyalgia. A randomized controlled clinical trial was performed. Seventy-four fibromyalgia patients were randomly assigned to experimental (massage-myofascial release therapy) and placebo (sham treatment with disconnected magnotherapy device) groups. The intervention period was 20 weeks. Pain, anxiety, quality of sleep, depression, and quality of life were determined at baseline, after the last treatment session, and at 1 month and 6 months. Immediately after treatment and at 1 month, anxiety levels, quality of sleep, pain, and quality of life were improved in the experimental group over the placebo group. However, at 6 months postintervention, there were only significant differences in the quality of sleep index. Myofascial release techniques improved pain and quality of life in patients with fibromyalgia.
Background:
Stillbirth and neonatal death are one of the most stressful life events, with negative outcomes for parents. Society does not recognize this type of loss, and parental grieving is particularly complicated and intense.
Purpose:
The aim of this study was to describe and understand the experiences of parents in relation to professional and social support following stillbirth and neonatal death.
Methods:
This was a qualitative study based on Gadamer's hermeneutic phenomenology. Twenty-one semistructured interviews were carried out. Inductive analysis was used to find themes based on the data.
Results:
Twenty-one parents (13 mothers and 8 fathers) from 6 families participated in the study. The analysis identified 2 main themes: (1) “professional care in dealing with parents' grief,” with the subthemes “important aspects of professional care,” “continuing of pathways of care”; and (2) “effects of social support in parental grief,” including the subthemes “the silence that surrounds grieving parents,” “family and other children: a key element,” and “perinatal loss support groups: a reciprocal help.”
Implications for Practice:
Counseling and support according to parents' requirements by an interdisciplinary team of professionals educated in perinatal loss and ethical family-centered care is needed. A social support system for families is necessary to avoid negative emotional consequences.
Implications for Research:
Further research is needed to analyze midwives' and nurses' experience as facilitators to improve parental grief and the difficulties experienced by the family, other children, and friends of parents with perinatal loss in providing support.
In individuals with chronic non-specific low back pain, interferential current electro-massage achieved a significantly greater improvement in disability, pain and quality of life in comparison to superficial massage after 20 treatment sessions.
Conducting action research schemes within international cooperation programmes signifies an excellent opportunity for the nursing system in less-developed countries to be included in international plans with the aim of standardizing the nursing practice.
Background:
Mothers' own milk (MOM) has more than nutritional benefits for extremely preterm infants (<28 weeks). However, mothers encounter barriers that make it difficult to provide their own milk to their extremely preterm infants.
Purpose:
The aim of this study was to describe and understand the experiences of mothers of extremely preterm infants regarding barriers to providing their own milk during infant hospital stay in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).
Methods:
This study followed a qualitative, interpretative design using Gadamer's hermeneutic approach and included 15 in-depth semistructured interviews. The data were analyzed using a modified form of the steps described by Fleming.
Results:
Fifteen mothers of extremely preterm infants participated in the study. The following themes were extracted from the data analysis: (1) “unexpected and unusual lactation,” including the subthemes “the extremely preterm birth and the decision to provide MOM,” “the battle to produce milk,” and “my job was to make milk”; and (2) “providing MOM to a tiny infant in an unknown technological environment,” with the subthemes “the limitations of providing MOM in the NICU” and “the difficulties of having an extremely preterm infant.”
Implications for Practice:
To provide MOM to an extremely preterm infant, there is a need for informational and practical counseling by neonatal nurses educated in breastfeeding according to mothers' requirements and emotional needs.
Implications for Research:
Future research may analyze the parents' and neonatal nurses' experience about facilitators to improve MOM provision and the influence of women's sociodemographic characteristics in providing MOM to the extremely preterm infants.
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