Assignment: Low Birth Weight Babies
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Assignment: Low Birth Weight Babies
Describe the effect of extremely low birth weight babies on the family and community. Consider short-term and long-term impacts, socioeconomic implications, the need for ongoing care, and comorbidities associated with prematurity.
Premature babies are common patients in the hospital setting. Low birth weight babies are defined as infants weighing under 5lbs 5oz while babies listed as extremely low birth weight are less than 2lbs 3oz (Bird, C. 2020). Having an extremely low birth weight child can put hardship on a family due to the added stress of increased hospital stays, possible surgical procedures needed, and the uncertainty of the future considering the looming possibility of long-term effects of prematurity. Parents and families can experience large financial burdens, extended time spent away from their other children, and time off from their jobs. Extremely low birth weight babies are considered a “vulnerable population” showing an increase in their risk for lower-than-average IQ scores as well as “academic and behavioral problems” (Fernandez, C. et al, 2021). According to the March of Dimes, babies that are born at low birth weights have an increased risk for developing conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and heart disease (2021). Environmental factors such as exposure to lead or toxic substances can cause extremely preterm labor, therefore effecting the outlook on a community who has a large number of babies born with extremely low birth weight. Cities where pregnant women are living close to power plants or factories that emit high levels of pollution are at an increased risk. Cities that have poor management of their landfills and waste centers increase the risk of women giving birth to babies with adverse effects (Woods, N. et al, 2017). These environmental risk factors, when discovered, can highlight a city as being a risk to the health of its’ residents and place a negative outlook on the area.
African American women have roughly a thirteen percent chance of having a low-birth-weight baby, the highest of all ethnicities (March of Dimes, 2021). African Americans have an increased chance of birthing multiples, thus increasing the risk that their infants are born with extremely low birth rates. Certain cultures such as Native Americans, who lack health literacy and do not rely on medical professionals for care, are less likely to seek medical care during pregnancy therefore they also have an increased risk of extremely low birth weight infants.
Here in Fort Worth, Texas, there is a very well-known program for the support of families with preemie babies. It is known as NICU Helping Hands. This program is a hospital-based program that supports the families of preemie babies through several individual programs. Project NICU is a service that provides additional information to families with NICU babies to increase their health knowledge and addresses the emotional needs these families have. The NICU Mom Connect provides a community of mothers who are experiencing similar hardships and allows them to connect with one another to provide knowledge and support. The Helping Hands program also works within communities to provide education on premature babies, risk factors for low birth weight, and takes donations to help with the financial burden for these families.
https://nicuhelpinghands.org/programs/project-nicu/
Resources
Bird, C. and Nzeh, V. (2020). Low Birth weight Baby Risks, Types, and Causes. https://www.verywellfamily.com/what-is-a-low-birth-weight-baby-2748477
Fernandez-Baizan, C., Alcántara-Canabal, L., Solis, G., & Mendez, M. (2021). The association between perinatal and neonatal variables and neuropsychological development in very and extremely low-birth-weight preterm children at the beginning of primary school. Applied Neuropsychology: Child, 10(4), 348–358. https://doi-org.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/21622965.2019.1709464
March of Dimes. (2021, June). Low Birth Weight. https://www.marchofdimes.org/complications/low-birthweight.aspx
Woods, N., Gilliland, J., & Seabrook, J. A. (2017). The influence of the built environment on adverse birth outcomes. Journal of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine, 10(3), 233–248. https://doi-org.lopes.idm.oclc.org/10.3233/NPM-16112
Explain how disparities relative to ethnic and cultural groups may contribute to low birth weight babies.
Identify one support service within your community to assist with preterm infants and their families and explain how the service adequately addresses the needs of the community, or a population in your community. Provide the link to the resource in your post.
Consider the following patient scenario:
A mother comes in with 9-month-old girl. The infant is 68.5cm in length (25th percentile per CDC growth chart), weighs 6.75kg (5th percentile per CDC growth chart), and has a head circumference of 43cm (25th percentile per CDC growth chart).
Describe the developmental markers a nurse should assess for a 9-month-old female infant. Discuss the recommendations you would give the mother. Explain why these recommendations are based on evidence-based practice.
You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.
Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.
Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.
The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS
Discussion Questions (DQ)
Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation
Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.
APA Format and Writing Quality
Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
Use of Direct Quotes
I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
LopesWrite Policy
For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy
The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
Communication
Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me: Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.
