Costs of visiting babies in special care baby units.

Open Access
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Parents of babies who spend long periods in special care baby units are faced with the problem of developing a caring relationship with their baby. The journeys to and from the hospital pose additional financial and social stress on parents who are already under considerable emotional strain. A survey into the financial costs incurred by parents visiting their babies in six hospitals during a period of 2 months was conducted using questionnaires. Complete data were available for analysis from four hospitals on 126 babies (98 inborn and 28 outborn). For babies inborn in a maternity hospital, the mean cost of visiting for parents with a car was 41 pounds (range 1-336) and for those who travelled by public transport the mean cost was 30 pounds (range 2-151). For babies born outside the hospital and transferred to a special care baby unit, the mean cost of visiting for parents with a car was 123 pounds (range 11-518), and for those who travelled by public transport the mean cost was 46 pounds (range 16-80). There was almost no financial assistance available to help these families, one-third of whom had at least one serious social problem.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: