Conclusion : Positive clinical ly meaningful effects ( > 5 points ) are seen to an age of 36 months , but are no longer present at 5 years
Objective : To determine in a systematic review , whether interventions for infant development that involve parents , improve neurodevelopment at 12 months corrected age or older .
Maternal psychological distress and parenting stress after the birth of a very low-birth-weight infant.
CONTEXT Few studies document how parents adapt to the experience of a very low-birth-weight ( VLBW ; < 1500 g ) birth despite societal concerns about the ethics and justification of intensive care for these infants . OBJECTIVE To determine the degree and type of stress experienced over time by mothers whose infants vary in degree of prematurity and medical and developmental risk . DESIGN Longitudinal prospect i ve follow-up study of a cohort of mothers of high- and low-risk VLBW and term infants from birth to 3 years . SETTING All level III neonatal intensive care units from a large midwestern metropolitan region . PARTICIPANTS Mothers and infants prospect ively and consecutively enrolled in a longitudinal study between 1989 and 1991 . High-risk VLBW infants were diagnosed as having bronchopulmonary dysplasia , and comparison groups were low-risk VLBW infants without bronchopulmonary dysplasia and term infants ( > 36 weeks , > 2500 g ) . MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES St and ardized , normative self-report measures of maternal psychological distress , parenting stress , family impact , and life stressors . RESULTS Mothers of VLBW infants ( high risk , n = 122 ; low risk , n = 84 ) had more psychological distress than mothers of term infants ( n=123 ) at 1 month ( 13 % vs 1 % ; P = .003 ) . At 2 years , mothers of low-risk VLBW infants did not differ from term mothers , while mothers of high-risk infants continued to report psychological distress . By 3 years , mothers of high-risk VLBW children did not differ from mothers of term children in distress symptoms , while parenting stress remained greater . Severity of maternal depression was related to lower child developmental outcomes in both VLBW groups . CONCLUSIONS The impact of VLBW birth varies with child medical risk status , age , and developmental outcome . Follow-up programs should incorporate psychological screening and support services for mothers of VLBW infants in the immediate postnatal period , with monitoring of mothers of high-risk VLBW infants
Conclusion : Positive clinical ly meaningful effects ( > 5 points ) are seen to an age of 36 months , but are no longer present at 5 years
Objective : To determine in a systematic review , whether interventions for infant development that involve parents , improve neurodevelopment at 12 months corrected age or older .