Neonatal Nurse Practitioner Programs

Immunizations are an important way to keep your child healthy and safe as I will demonstrate below:

1.  Vaccines are effective- they are created with the sole purpose of helping your child to be able to fight off unwanted bacterial and viral infections. Getting vaccinated early will give your child a better chance of staying well.

2. Immunizations are safe- all vaccines have to be FDA approved before being released to the general public. Rest assured that your child is not going to be exposed to anything unless it has been scrutinized as being safe to use first. If it comes to light that a vaccine is not safe, the public would be quickly notified and the vaccine itself would be quickly pulled from shelves like any defective product.

3. No alternative to Immunizations- as a parent, there is no way to always watch over your child and it has to be expected that at some point children will expose themselves to germs. It’s best to allow a vaccine the ability to strengthen the immune system and give a child a better chance to fight of sickness.

4. High Risk- those children who are not immunized will find themselves putting others at risk, especially those who are also not immunized. A completely preventable disease can become serious and sometimes even deadly if spread to those who are unprepared.

5. Diseases Needing Eradicated- immunizations have helped to eradicate once more common diseases such as polio and measles, however if children are left untreated they can once again become carriers of a disease once thought nearly extinct.

6. Vaccines Are the Safer Alternative- if given a choice between allowing a child to contract the disease and getting vaccinated, the choice should be clear that the latter will have fewer negative consequences.

Neonatal care, whether by parents or hospital staff, is often critical to the health and well-being of an infant. The first twenty-eight days of an infant’s life constitute the neonatal period. Neonatal care in medical institutions is a specialized field as neonatal nurse practitioners have to often face infants that are critically ill. Here are nine blogs that cover the field of neonatal care and regular perusal of the material on these blogs will surely educate and inform healthcare professionals, students, and the amateur reader interested in the subject.

1. Neonatal ICU – The blog covers all information on Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU – pronounced Nickyou). The blog, written by a parent and a member of a NICU is of particular use to parents that have to face the prospect of neonatal care of their infant. Learn about the procedures, admission criteria, costs, equipment used, and much more. This blog is a single resource which parents can use as a starting point to learn about their infant’s condition and how best to cope with the situation.

2. Pediatrix.com – The parent and patient information section on this blog is an exhaustive repository of information on high-risk mothers, high-risk infants. Browse through the blog for content on neonatal medicine and related aspects such as maternal fetal medicine. The information on this portal is high-quality and is brought out by Pediatrix Medical Group, which is America’s leading provider of maternal-fetal, newborn and pediatric subspecialty physician services.

3. Little Miss Hannah – A touching blog chronicling the fight of Hannah, a little girl born with an extremely rare condition – Gaucher’s disease. Little Hannah was placed in the NICU after birth and since then life and growing up have been a struggle. Follow her progress here as her mom valiantly strives to keep her healthy and raise funds for her treatment.

4. NICU Parent Support Blog – The blog is run by Kirsti A. Dyer, who is a physician and a former NICU parent. Her posts are aimed at being a source of information, education, and support for those parents that have to cope with critically or chronically ill babies.

5. Sophie’s Journey – The blog chronicles Sophie’s journey from a difficult birth till present date. Maintained by her mom Claire, the blog is a source of information on how an ordinary family copes with their child’s hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) which caused it to be airlifted to a hospital with NICU facilities immediately after birth. Sophie’s journey is a positive and encouraging tale for parents with kids diagnosed with HIE.

6. Postpartum Progress – A blog focusing on postpartum depression and anxiety. Among a host of other things, find out about dealing with post-childbirth depression particularly if you are faced with a premature baby that requires neonatal care.

7. Preemie Babies 101 – A blog created by a Afton, who went through two gut-wrenching premature deliveries before finally delivering a normal healthy child. The posts encourage and inform other parents that have to deal with preemies. The blog includes well-thought of categories and a forum as well.

8. L’il Aussie Prems – A neat and exhaustive blog covering all issues related to premature babies including neonatal care. The blog is the creation of Julia Toivonen, mother of two premature babies. Through this blog she reaches out to all parents of infants that are undergoing or required NICU treatment.

9. The preemie experiment – A blog that binds a community of people committed to studying the long-term effects of premature babies – financial, health-wise, and emotional. The blog explores life with premature babies beyond moving out of the NICU and the initial days of hope and anxiety.