There are many books on the care of the sick infant and some are excellent. Most, however, are written with medicine in mind. This book is written mainly by experienced neonatal nurses, although some chapters have been written by the appropriate specialists. lt is intended primarily for nurses who Iook after sick infants and is not intended to be an exhaustive reference but to address some of the issues and concepts of neonatal care in the 1990s. Nursing models are an important part of neonatal care in the 1990s but this book has not been written within this framework. There are several reasons for this: arguably no current model is ideally suited to neonates and the favouring of one particular model might restriet the book's applicability. Also, as contributors from other disciplines were invited to contribute we were anxious that these chapters did not stand out as oddities. Additionally, much neonatal care overlaps and were a framework to be used in its entirety for each nursing care chapter we feit that there could be some repeti tion; conversely, if a framework was fragmented in some chap ters to cover specific areas of care, we were concemed that the overall effect would have been 'bitty'. We feit that such treat ment of nursing models would have been unjustifiable. In this book, the terms 'infant' and 'baby' are used inter changeably and where the term 'he' is used, the term 'she' is equally appropriate. Front Matter....Pages i-xxii Neonatal care today....Pages 1-15 Nursing models: suitable frameworks for care?....Pages 16-24 Prenatal and intranatal care of the fetus, mother and father....Pages 25-42 Resuscitation — flying squad transfer....Pages 43-60 Nursing care of babies who are born too soon or too small....Pages 61-80 Nursing care of a baby with a disorder of the gastrointestinal system....Pages 81-102 Feeding low birth weight infants in today’s neonatal environment....Pages 103-130 Nursing care of a baby with a disorder of the respiratory system....Pages 131-160 Nursing care of a baby with a disorder of the cardiovascular system....Pages 161-190 Infant neurology....Pages 191-206 Nursing care of a baby in renal failure....Pages 207-225 Neonatal infection....Pages 226-244 Nursing care of a baby with jaundice....Pages 245-258 Nursing care of a baby in pain and discomfort....Pages 259-277 Enhancing Development in the Neonatal Unit....Pages 278-294 Neonatal pharmacology....Pages 295-308 Ethical issues in the neonatal unit....Pages 309-324 Home oxygenation....Pages 325-345 Infant statistics....Pages 346-371 Back Matter....Pages 372-400 This comprehensive text covers all areas of neonatal nursing, including ethics, continuing care in the community, intranatal care, statistics and pharmacokinetics in which the holistic care of the infant is described.
