Bringing a Preemie Home From the NICU Is Stressful — but It's Harder on Dads, Study Says

Having a premature baby in the NICU isn't easy on any parent — especially once mom is released from the hospital and officially leaves her baby alone for the first time. The scary time is filled with ups and downs, wires and tubes, and a lot of hoping that everything will turn out OK. A recent study, however, examined parents' stress levels after finally bringing their babies home, and though it should feel like a relief to have them out of the hospital, dads in particular actually appeared to be more stressed upon bringing their fragile newborns home.

The study, which appeared in the Journal of Perinatal and Neonatal Nursing, had 86 parents complete "salivary collections" to measure their cortisol levels (the body produces coritsol when stressed) and two surveys assessing their stress levels on the three days before their child was released from the NICU, and on the three days after baby was able to go home. As it turns out, the moms tended to have more "perceived" stress, whereas the dads didn't allude to feeling stressed — but their cortisol levels didn't lie; these dads were internalizing a lot more stress than they communicated.

"Dad and mom are faced with the responsibility of taking care of baby, taking care of each other," Dr. Craig Garfield, an associate professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and author of the paper, told TODAY. "We hypothesize that may be what is responsible for the increase in stress . . . [Dads] are actually internally feeling more stress than what they were reporting. That has lot of significance. We need to find other ways to get at what dad is experiencing."

Because a dad's stress appears to be internalized, at least based on this small sample size, Dr. Garfield notes that it's important for people to understand that a father's stress may look different than a mother's. He acknowledges that more research needs to be done to come to more conclusive results, but for the time being is urging that dads express their feelings more acutely during those early days after bringing their baby home, and that there be more support available specifically for dads.

"Moms are given a lot of coaching and advice. Dads will say they do not know what to do," Dr. Garfield said. "We do a great job of preparing these babies to go home. Have we prepared the parents well enough to send them home?"