Intensive Parenting Surviving the Emotional Journey through the NICU

Parenthood transforms you. Even before this crisis, you may have experienced a wide range of feelings triggered by pregnancy, birth, and welcoming a new baby. The NICU experience challenges your emotional coping, your developing parental identity, your relationship skills, and your ability to adjust. Intensive Parentingexplores the emotions of parenting in the neonatal intensive care unit, from in-hospital through issues and concerns after the child is home. Deboral L. Davis and Mara Tesler Stein describe and affirm the wide range of experiences and emotional reactions that occur in the NICU and offer strategies for parents coping with their baby's condition and hospitalization. Deborah L. Davis, PhD, is a developmental psychologist and writer who is the author of several books that support grieving parents including Empty Cradle, Broken Heart: Surviving the Death of Your Babyand Loving and Letting Go. Mara Tesler Stein, PsyD, is a clinical psychologist. She consults to healthcare providers and hospitals, guiding their efforts to improve the level of psychological support and care to families in Labor and Delivery and in the NICU. She specializes in the emotional aspects of coping with crisis around pregnancy and parenting.