Experiences of Mothers in NICU Giving Birth to Substance-Exposed Infants

Research Article Critique
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Research Article Critique
Background of Study
The use of illegitimate substances among American pregnant women has been estimated to be exceeding 5%. Use of drugs in pregnancy is a multifaceted issue that is commonly linked with domestic violence, depression, and poverty. Women are generally hesitant to have help for drug addiction since they are afraid of the risk that they may lose their children custody (Cleveland & Gill, 2013). There is also limited research performed to determine attitudes of health care provider that they show towards drug-addicted mothers. It has been shown from the research that the mothers are directly blamed for their infant suffering from drug addiction. If the mothers who tend to struggle with drug addiction are treated and understood in a better way then, a typical relationship between a health care provider and an addicted mother can be improved.
According to Patrick et al. (2012), the number of infants born with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) has been increased thrice throughout the last decade. The withdrawal of infants from illicit drugs is not easy, requiring long-term intensive care. $1500 per day with 24 days on the average is the stay of an infant in the hospital. On a national level, the total hospital charges on account of NAS-related admissions have been estimated to be jumped to $720 million from $190 million in the last ten years. The purpose of this study by Cleveland & Gill (2013) was to discover the experiences of mothers of infants (substance-exposed), relevant to the hospital. This research question was asked from the Mexican-American mothers regarding their experience in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) upon giving birth to infants who were substance exposed. Both the purpose and research question were related to each other.
Method of Study
In order to conduct this investigation, a qualitative descriptive approach was adopted which was appropriate to find out the study purpose. Secondary analysis of data was performed acquired from a larger study that was centered on the Mexican-American mothers’ experiences in the NICU. Five women were recruited to answer semi-structured interviews, who were under the recovering phase from methadone addiction. Their infants were admitted to NICU just after birth. Qualitative content analysis was performed for the analysis of transcribed interviews.
The author cited studies about the study topic, such as those highlighting statistics of drug use among pregnant women and relevant cost expenditure on infants born with drug addiction in the US. Most of the references were current; for instance, studies signifying some infants born with NAS in the US. Some of the studies were more than 5-years old; however, since this study was qualitative; therefore, those were also relevant to the study topic. It was indicated about the limited number of studies conducted regarding the said topic. However, their limitations were not discussed. The authors discussed limitations about their study such as the small sample size of the study. The study recruited participants from a large, tertiary care NICU, but at the interview time, no infant of the participants w...