The difficult first week at home with a premature infant.

The results reported were obtained from the findings of a larger descriptive study that surveyed the support needs of 56 mothers of high-risk premature infants. Forty-eight percent of the mothers found the first week after their infant's discharge home difficult. Data analysis indicated the more premature the infant (birth weight r = 0.29, P = 0.03; gestational age r = 0.34, P = 0.008), and the greater the severity of illness as determined by length of hospital stay (r = -0.27, P = 0.04), the more likely the mother was to have a difficult first postdischarge week. The visit of the community health nurse during that first week was a significant factor in whether the mothers perceived the time as difficult (Fisher's exact test, P = 0.02). It was found, as well, that the community health nurses were less likely to visit mothers of very low-birth-weight infants during that week (Fisher's exact test, P = 0.02). Other variables related to difficulty during the first week were whether the infants had apnea in hospital (r = 0.33, P = 0.01), mothers' need for specific kinds of information such as knowledge about colic (chi 2 = 24.31, df = 12, P = 0.02), and an earlier scheduled visit to a physician for mothers whose infants were of lower birth weight (r = -0.26, P = 0.05), earlier gestational age (r = -0.34, P = 0.009), and had spent longer time in hospital (r = 0.37, P = 0.006).