Parenting through place‐of‐care disruptions: A qualitative study of parents' experiences of neonatal care

Abstract

Introduction: Neonatal care is complex, involving multiple people and technologies within a community of care. When preterm babies are cared for far from home and/or transferred between units, the whole community of care (and particularly parent participation) is disrupted. Although previous studies have captured subjective experiences of parents, there has been little research exploring the material practices undertaken by parents as a consequence of place‐of‐care decisions, or the social organisation of those practices. Methods: As part of a wider study exploring optimal place‐of‐care, semistructured interviews were conducted between July 2018 and October 2019 with 48 parents (36 families) with one or more preterm babies (born at 27–31 weeks gestation) cared for in a neonatal unit in the last 12 months. Findings: We highlight parents' labour‐intensive and stressful work to: (1) parent in the neonatal care community (an oversight role that goes beyond contemporary notions of ‘involvement’); (2) create continuity amid place‐of‐care disruptions; and (3) adapt to the managerial logics of neonatal care settings. Our analysis focuses on the work generated by managerial systems that organise place‐of‐care decision‐making and other efficiency‐focused practices. Parents are absorbed into negotiating institutional systems and diverted from routine parenting activities. Conclusion: Those involved in the organisation and management of neonatal care should take account of how managerial systems impact parents' workload, ability to participate in their baby's community of care and, ultimately, on the wellbeing and development of babies and their families. Patient or Public Contribution: The OPTI‐PREM study embedded parents' experiences of neonatal care into the research, through a discrete workstream that employed qualitative methodology to capture parents' experiences—as reported in this paper. The OPTI‐PREM project was also supported by a Bliss volunteer parent panel, which was involved in designing and overseeing the research. Bliss ‘champion[s] the right for every baby born premature or sick to receive the best care by supporting families, campaigning for change and supporting professionals and enabling life‐changing research’ (https://www.bliss.org.uk/about-us/about-bliss). A representative of Bliss is a co‐author of this manuscript, and a parent representative (named in the Acknowledgements) provided feedback during its preparation.

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/hex.13933
Divisions: College of Business and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences & Humanities
College of Business and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences & Humanities > Sociology and Policy
College of Business and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences & Humanities > Centre for Health and Society
Aston University (General)
Funding Information: Health Services and Delivery Research Programme. Grant Number: 15/70/104
Additional Information: © 2023 The Authors. Health Expectations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Uncontrolled Keywords: parenting,community of care,policy,qualitative methods,neonatal care,management,parent involvement
Publication ISSN: 1369-7625
Last Modified: 09 Dec 2024 17:42
Date Deposited: 20 Dec 2023 13:51
Full Text Link:
Related URLs: https://onlinel ... .1111/hex.13933 (Publisher URL)
http://www.scop ... tnerID=8YFLogxK (Scopus URL)
PURE Output Type: Article
Published Date: 2024-02
Published Online Date: 2023-12-18
Accepted Date: 2023-11-25
Submitted Date: 2023-01-26
Authors: Cupit, Caroline
Paton, Alexis (ORCID Profile 0000-0003-4310-6983)
Boyle, Elaine
Pillay, Thillagavathie
Anderson, Josie
Armstrong, Natalie
, the OPTI‐PREM team

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