The F.I.N.E. Conference for Healthcare Professionals: Neurodevelopmental Care is Essential!
Family and Infant Neurodevelopmental Care Education, the program coordinated by Dr. Inga Warren, is the curriculum brought by ARNIS to Romania since 2018. By organizing workshops for medical professionals, we contribute to changing medical practice in Neonatology departments to increase the quality of medical care, at optimal neurodevelopment and reduction of the risk of secondary disabilities in preterm infants and other long hospitalizations newborns.
After 5 years and almost 300 medical professionals trained at Level 1 of the FINE course. (Family-Centered Care to Enhance the Neurodevelopment of the Newborn), we organized the first F.I.N.E. Conference: Neurodevelopmental Care is Essential!
The conference addressed to Level 1 graduates from the 5 years since we have been organizing the training. To our delight, more than 70 medical professionals have registered to participate in this event.
The purpose of the Conference was to recall the principles taught in the course, to facilitate their implementation in NICU. Starting from models of good practice, the presentation of studies that argue the importance of ensuring an optimal neurological development, we ended with the presentation of a recovery chart of the premature child from 0 to 12 years.
The first speaker was Dr. Csaba Nador (MD, CSc Head of the Department of Neonatology within the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Semmelweis University) who presented the implementation of Family Centered Care in two hospitals of Hungarian neighbors. Dr. Csaba Nador worked closely with the Melletted patient Association of Helyem Egyesület and together they brought the F.I.N.E training in most neonatology wards in Hungary.
Dr. Nádor Csaba is a pediatrician and neonatologist, and since 2009 he has a diploma in health management. Since 2005, he has been leading the Premature Intensive Care Unit (PIC), currently the PIC of the Health Center of the Hungarian Armed Forces. In 2014, he became the national specialist responsible for quality in neonatology at GYEMSZI. He is a staunch advocate of family-friendly neonatal care, and without the involvement and education of parents, he believes successful and effective treatment is impossible. He believes that “in the NICU, the fight is not only for survival, but for the achievement of quality life prospects, in which developmental care and adequate nutrition of premature babies play a predominant role.” (cited source: https://www.mellettedahelyem.hu)
Dr. Inga Warren, CBE, MSc, DSc, FRCOT is the lead author of the FINE Program and co-director of FINE International. She is a NIDCAP Senior Trainer with extensive international experience, with papers on family-centred care for newborn development published in nursing, therapeutic and medical journals. She is the co-author of “Caring for Your Baby in the Neonatal Unit: A Handbook for Parents”. She has an MSc in Child Development, an Honorary Doctor of Science from Oxford Brookes University, is a Fellow of the Royal College of Occupational Therapists and was awarded a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen’s New Year’s Honors List 2021.
Dr. Inga Warren brought back to the discussion the importance of assigning the role of primary caregivers to parents, individualizing the care given to newborns by paying attention to the factors that influence brain development: stress and pain, sleep, feeding, positioning, social interaction and emotional connection.
Dr. Inga Warren states that observing infant behavior is key to:
- Protecting the stability of the child’s condition and his comfort,
- Protecting brain development,
- Improving the parent-child relationship.
Corina Croitoru (founding member and president of ARNIS) presented the recovery graph of a premature child from 0 to 12 years old, emphasizing the idea that cognitive recovery is as important as motor recovery and that it must be started as early as possible.
The simultaneous translation from English to Romanian was provided by Eugenia Dobrescu (PBN certified nutrition consultant, IBCLC certified lactation consultant), to whom we thank. The conference was organized with the support and courtesy of EFCNI (European Foundation for the Care of Newborn Infants) through the sponsorship of RedHat. Thank you!
At the end of the event, the participants received Certificates of Participation signed by Dr. Inga Warren, and the overall satisfaction of the participants, expressed in an anonymous questionnaire, was over 90% regarding the organization, lecturers, content and translation.
The enthusiasm of the participants for the subject gave us the idea to create a group, a community of specialists interested in the neurodevelopment of newborns hospitalized in NICU.
Thank you to our partners and participants! We will continue to inspire and hope that one day all parents will have access in NICU to care for their baby and the quality of medical nursing services will be similar to that of the countries we look to as a model.
30.09.2022