Objective

The purpose of this bibliographic revision is to have a better understanding of the philosophy of developmental centered care of the premature infant: NIDCAP. These interventions are aimed at optimising the macroenvironment and microenvironment, together with actions aimed at the family in order to promote stability and the organisation of the development and behaviour of the premature newborn; and from here, to evaluate the effectiveness of its application.

Methodology

The methodology stems from a bibliographic research (using inclusion and exclusion criteria) in Spanish and English language, during the period between 2010 and 2015. The data bases used are the following: PUBMED, THE COCHRANE LIBRARY, SCOPUS, CUIDEN, DIALNET, LILACS, TDR y GOOGLE ACADÉMICO (certain official web pages have also been used).

Results

They have been focused on the revision of macroenvironment (light, noise), microenvironment (posture, manipulation, pain) ,the family (parents as main caretakers of the premature infant, Kangaroo Method, breastfeeding) and the evaluation of the effectiveness of NIDCAP implementation.

Discussion

It is basically aimed at the consideration of NIDCAP from the perspective of reality (prematurity as the main cause of neonatal and infant morbidity and mortality), the literature evidence, quality/warmth of the cares, economic cost, and the professional roles.

Conclusions

There is no evidence that NIDCAP programme improves the neurologic development in the long term or the medical results in the short term, therefore, NIDCAP implementation in its current form as standard care in premature infants cannot be recommended. However, when we analyze the interventions that take part of the CCD or NIDCAP in isolation, most of them are justified in terms of common sense, sensitivity in cares and respect to the family and child.

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