This application is specially made for the parents of newborn infants admitted to Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Over the past decades the number of premature births has significantly increased and also has the survival rate of very small preemies. This leads to a significant increase in the number of babies hospitalized in NICUs and therefore in the number parents who go through this experience. The birth of a preterm baby or a baby with a health problem is a situation that by itself creates extremely negative feelings to the parents and also intense stress. The sudden contact with the environment of the NICU, the sight of the newborn associated with a set of support equipment and the information about the health problems, is for parents an extremely negative and difficult to manage situation. This application aims to give parents the necessary information about what is happening in the NICU and what they will see and face there, believing that it will contribute in this way to parents’ effort to deal with this new unpleasant situation and will make things a little bit easier for them.
The app contains information about the reasons that may lead a newborn baby in the NICU, about the different levels of monitoring, about the personnel and the equipment in NICU etc. There is also information about premature babies and the common problems that they face . The app attempts to answer frequently asked questions of parents whose babies are hospitalized in NICU like the precautions they must take when entering the NICU, how they can help their baby while hospitalized in NICU etc.
The app also gives parents the possibility to keep a diary during the hospitalization of their newborn in the NICU, by keeping notes about the progress of the baby’s health and the feelings they had.