Project

Listening Visits: A Helping Aid for Distressed NICU Mothers

Lisa Segre and Rebecca Chuffo Davila

DOI: 10.26303/tp1m-ac41

What is it about?

Having one’s newborn sent to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is a tremendously distressing event for mothers. In current clinical practice, however, no special measures are taken to improve these mothers’ emotional well-being beyond screening for depression and referring them to mental health professionals. Because these mothers usually choose to spend any free time visiting their newborn at the NICU, this traditional approach to mental health is ill-suited to help them.

Over the last decade, Dr. Lisa Segre, Professor in the College of Nursing, University of Iowa and Dr. Rebecca Chuffo Davila, a neonatal nurse practitioner in the University of Iowa's Stead Family Children's Hospital, have been working on implementing a more sensible strategy to help distressed postpartum mothers, which is called Listening Visits (LVs). These are short listening sessions carried out by trained nurses, who periodically sit with the mothers to actively and emphatically listen to them as they express their problems and emotions.

Although LVs were originally conceived to be delivered by home-visiting nurses, this teams latest research suggests that these interventions can be of particular help to distressed mothers at the NICU. Through multiple studies that began in 2010, she and her colleagues have found that LVs are an excellent way of channeling the supportive skills of nurses, who are often the mothers’ most trusted healthcare professional in the NICU. Currently, Drs. Segre, Chuffo Davila and four bedside NICU nurses are conducting the first randomized controlled trial to gather conclusive evidence supporting the implementation of LVs at the NICU.

Why is it important?

The depressive mood states that NICU mothers have to endure can take a serious toll on their long-term health and even affect their parenting capabilities. Research suggests listening visits (LVs) could become a crucial tool to tackle these problems early on and make an already difficult experience more bearable for distressed mothers.

Additionally, the new research showcases the versatility of LVs in a markedly different context than the one they were originally designed for. It is likely that LVs could also be useful in other settings, such as the pediatric intensive care unit or provide help for caregivers of the elderly.

Audience briefings1 total

Press briefing

Adapting a Listening Intervention for Nurses to Support Distressed NICU Mothers

11th February 2021, Iowa City – Few things are more stressful than having one’s newborn sent to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Mothers in such situations often experience severe depressive symptoms, which can markedly affect their long-term mental and physical health.

Unfortunately, current clinical practice offers no special way of addressing this glaring problem; not much is done besides screening for depression and referring the mother to a mental health professional. Knowing that most mothers choose to spend any spare time visiting their child at the NICU instead of attending a mental health professional, finding a strategy that is actually effective in helping these mothers at the NICU is essential. Associate Professor Lisa Segre from the College of Nursing, University of Iowa, has spent well over a decade studying the viability of a revolutionary approach for nurses to help postpartum mothers with depression, which she calls listening visits (LVs). These interventions were originally conceived in the UK for home-visiting nurses visiting postpartum mothers. The nurses would engage in active and emphatic listening, thereby providing much-needed emotional support and alleviating depressive symptoms.

Dr. Segre and her team not only imported LVs to the USA, but also adapted them to the NICU setting for the first time. After completing numerous successful studies hinting at the effectiveness of LVs in the NICU, Dr. Segre is currently conducting the first randomized controlled trial to gather more conclusive evidence in favor of this revolutionary approach.

Her research has the potential to dramatically improve care for emotionally distressed NICU mothers. Her studies have established that clinical NICU nurses are well-positioned to provide emotional support in the form of LVs, ultimately improving depression outcomes and reducing infant length of stay by accelerating maternal readiness. Additionally, LVs may hold potential in other settings, such as the pediatric intensive care unit or provide help for elderly caregivers.

Resources10 total

Who is involved?