Nursig care about newborn within the perioperation care.

The topic of the thesis Nursing Care of Newborns in the Process of Perioperative Care deals with specific and distinct features of such care from the viewpoint of nursing. The main objective was to specify all tasks of nurses in the process of perioperative care and the procedures they use. Last but not least, we focused on how the nursing care differs with regard to the age of newborns. The selected research method was qualitative research using semi-structured interviews with nurses from perinatology centers. The research covered 10 respondents with various levels of education and lengths of practical experience. Nurses most frequently understand the term of perioperative care as the care provided before, during and after a surgery. Most of them actually perform preparation of the child before the surgery and then they provide postoperative care. Only 2 out of the 10 respondents are directly involved in the surgery procedure and thus accompany the newborns throughout the entire process of perioperative care. The care provided before the surgery most often includes identification of the child, checking of its vital functions, involvement in blood collection, including intravenous cannulation, administration of prescribed medication, preparation of the surgical site and communication with the parents. Children are most frequently accompanied by their mothers and nurses need to communicate with them. Nurses transport the child to the operating room, hand the child over and subsequently take it back after the surgery. They also record all those activities in the medical files and in some cases they check signed informed consents. Intraoperative care consists mainly of monitoring of the newborn, assisting to the physician in airway management - intubation and during the entire surgery procedure. The most common surgical procedures performed in children are hernia, bowel and heart surgeries. The nurses also generally mentioned surgeries of developmental disorders. After the surgery nurses usually move the child to the neonatology intensive care unit which is equipped with a ventilator, incubator and all types of medication. They regularly check and record child´s vital functions, monitor the surgical wound and its proximity, intake and excretion, they provide nutrition etc. Nurses also assess the pain, most frequently using the NIPS scale, and they educate the parents. Post-surgery complications occur only sporadically and they include infections, bleeding or abstinence syndrome after administration of opiates. The collected data have shown only one difference relating to the age of newborns who underwent a surgery. Specifically, certain surgeries, e.g. of necrotic enterocolitis, are performed more frequently on less mature newborns. In general, most of the surgeries are performed on prematurely born neonates and extremely immature neonates. When asked what they would like to change or improve in the perioperative care from the nursing point of view the nurses primarily mentioned more contacts between the mother and child and consistent compliance with aseptic procedures. The responding nurses were mostly content, they praised the highly specialized care and the good cooperation between the nursing team and the medical team which consists of pediatricians and specialists. Results of those teams thus contribute to continually decreasing mortality rate of high-risk and pathological newborns and to better quality of life of those children after the surgery