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Updated: Sep 16, 2025

Assessment and Evaluation of the High Risk Neonate: The NICU Network Neurobehavioral Scale
Published on: August 25, 2014
Developing Parental Identity in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
Katherine E Schwartz1,2, Katharine P Callahan3,4, Karen Crew5
1Division of Neonatology, Cohen Children's Medical Center, Northwell Health, New Hyde Park, New York.
Background:
Parents of neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) patients become parents in a stressful, unexpected environment. These parents are at risk of impaired bonding with their infants and may experience worse mental health outcomes compared with parents of infants born healthy. A better understanding of how parents develop their identity as a parent in the NICU may facilitate improved parent support.
Methods:
This qualitative study analyzed semistructured interviews with parents of NICU patients to explore parental identity development in the NICU. We applied phenomenological and narrative analytic frameworks.
Results:
We interviewed 25 parents of 20 NICU patients. Parents described challenges inherent in becoming a parent in the NICU and ways to overcome them. Five themes emerged around how parental identity develops, including the following: (1) through performing activities, (2) by shifting expectations, (3) at transition points, (4) over time, and (5) through feeling recognized. Parents identified a difference between bonding and feeling like a parent.
Conclusions:
For parents of patients in the NICU, developing their personal sense of identity as a parent is a complex process, separate from parent-infant bonding. Improved knowledge of and support for parental identity development in the NICU may improve both patient and parent outcomes.
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