Kallan, Joanna Cohen

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Genre

Thesis/Dissertation

Date

2013

Author

Kallan, Joanna Cohen

Advisor

Condran, Gretchen

Committee member

Delaney, Kevin
Markens, Susan, 1967-

Department

Sociology

DOI

http://dx.doi.org/10.34944/dspace/1545

Abstract

This research examines the structure of the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit), a venue that juxtaposes a highly technological and medical setting against the care and nurturing of child by her parents. In this site, parents must construct and refine their definition of what it means to be a good parent in the context of the environment, medical professionals' expertise, and their child's hospitalization. At the same time, the health professionals on the unit are also impacted by their own experiences, preconceptions, and faith in medicine. Particularly relevant actors are the registered nurses, who care for babies but interact with parents; how nurses conceive of the parenting role influences the nature of this interaction, and therefore the experience of the parents in the unit. Yet nurses' definition of good parenting in the NICU often contradicts that of parents, and those who fail to meet the nurses' definition may find themselves labeled bad parents. Data for this research was collected in two urban NICUs. Mixed qualitative methods were used in the form of participant observation and in-depth interviews with both parents and staff members at both institutions, to the end of uncovering themes regarding commonalities of characterizations of good and bad parenting. Findings demonstrate that in constructing a definition of good parenting, parents medicalized themselves in the context of the NICU. Many incorporated medicalization into the parental role by accepting the notion that they could help to heal their baby, not just through care work but by actively taking on responsibilities that they felt could be beneficial. Parents' definitions of good parenting also included relying on the opinions of medical experts, which demonstrated a faith in the professionalization of medicine and the medicalization of childbirth and child care. Nurses' conceptions of what made up a good parent included deference. Many believed that parents needed to do what was best for the baby, defining this in part by stating that it meant listening to the experts, including themselves. Taking a Foucauldian approach to examine the position of nurses in the hospital, this fulfilled a need many nurses had to be respected for their skills and feel powerful on the unit. Additionally, nurses would label those whom they did not feel were meeting their parameters for being a good parent as bad parents, which often involved judging parents on the basis of their actions before or during their pregnancy. Parents were also judged based on how they acted in the unit. The bad parent label was applied both to parents who had confidence in their own abilities to parent while in the NICU, and also to mothers with a history of drug abuse. In accordance with labeling theory, once this label was affixed, it impacted the way that nurses and other staff treated parents and viewed all of their activities. The recent nature of this work reflects the impact of the newest technological innovations on the parental experience. This includes the increasingly sophisticated medical equipment in the NICU, what this has meant in terms of pushing the limits of viability, and the ability of parents to access information via the Internet. It also demonstrates the gap in parents' and nurses' ideas in the NICU, validating the place of sociology in discussions of family-centered care.

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Theses and Dissertations

"It's Like a Different Kind of Parenting": Constructions of Good and Bad Parenting in Neonatal Intensive Care