Window of Opportunity: Prevention Messaging in Newborn Intensive Care

The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) can provide unique teachable moments to enhance prevention education in an effort to reduce future premature births. A mother who gives birth to an infant before 37 completed weeks of pregnancy is at increased risk of giving birth to another premature infant. While there are still many unanswered questions regarding the etiology of premature birth, risk reduction strategies such as birth spacing, high risk perinatal care, chronic disease management between pregnancies, and hormone therapy show promise. Therefore, families in the NICU are in many ways an ideal population for carefully-crafted risk reduction messaging delivered in many formats. However, it is essential to develop strategies that are culturally and linguistically-sensitive and implemented in the context of a comprehensive family centered approach to health care.