 | The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
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| The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
Lee SmithBattle, RN, DNSc, School of Nursing, School of Nursing, Saint Louis University, 3525 Caroline St., St. Louis, MO 63104, 314-577-8980, smithli@slu.edu
Browsing the parenting section of any bookstore reveals a wide variety of commercially available baby books. While two baby books have been created for health and educational purposes, their impersonal tone, their exclusive focus on infant growth and development, and their failure to address parental emotions and experiences are significant limitations. A baby book was therefore designed with a more personal tone to enhance experiential learning and to validate parents' emotions and experiences. This is accomplished by text written from the baby's perspective and by including journal pages which encourage parents to write about the baby and about the challenges and joys of parenting. A previous study demonstrated the broad appeal of the baby book and suggested its potential clinical usefulness. This paper describes the current use of the baby book journal as a clinical tool in an intervention study with teenage mothers. Public health nurses (PHNs) give the baby book to participating teens during the third trimester of pregnancy and ask the teens to share their journal entries with them during home visits. The researchers will describe how journal entries enhance their understanding of the teens' transition to mothering and help to tailor care to what the teen mother is noticing and learning from her baby. Future plans for distributing the baby book journal will also be discussed.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Maternal and Child Health, Public Health Nursing
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.