Nurses caring for birth tourism families in neonatal intensive care units: A phenomenological inquiry

Abstract

<p><strong>Background:</strong> Birth tourism families plan their birthing experience that includes purchasing a maternity care package, traveling internationally to a preferred destination, and the delivery of a healthy newborn in an expected short hospital stay. However, some families admit a premature or ill infant into a South Florida neonatal intensive care unit. When admitted into this setting, neonatal nurses are unique in providing quality nursing care to birth tourism infants and their parents as a family unit. There remains a gap in nursing research in understanding neonatal nurses' lived experience caring for birth tourism families in the neonatal intensive care unit.</p>

<p><strong>Purpose:</strong> The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study using van Manen's (1990) methodology was to understand the lived experience of neonatal nurses caring for birth tourism families who admit a newborn into South Florida's neonatal intensive care units.</p>

<p><strong>Philosophical Underpinnings:</strong> Max van Manen's (1990) hermeneutic phenomenology guided the question: "What is the lived experience of neonatal nurses caring for birth tourism families who admit their infant into South Florida's neonatal intensive care units?"</p>

<p><strong>Methods: </strong>The target population was neonatal nurses working in South Florida's neonatal intensive care unit. Purposive and snowball sampling were used. Collected data from semi-structured interviews and participants' artworks were entered in NVivo 12-Pro software. Max van Manen's (1990) six procedural activities and Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña's (2014) data flowing activities, line-by-line theming, and interpreting were adopted to organize, code, and categorize the gathered texts.</p>

<p><strong>Results:</strong> From 22 neonatal nurses interviewed, four themes emerged. Interpreted data yielded the funneling of cultural care in a continuous phase of <em>recognizing cultural interactions, acknowledging cultural consciousness, canalizing compassionate care, and bridging family-centeredness</em>.</p>

<p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>This study revealed the participants' experiences caring for birth tourism families who unexpectedly admit newborns into the neonatal intensive care unit. When caring for a sick or ill newborn, neonatal nurses do not always recognize birth tourism families in the unit, hindering supporting their needs and delivering culturally competent care. Neonatal nurses experience the funneling of cultural care in a continuous phase of recognizing cultural interactions, acknowledging cultural consciousness, canalizing compassionate care, and bridging family-centeredness to provide quality family-centered and culturally competent care to meet the needs of birth tourism families.</p>