Health Promotion and Prevention for Infants

Health promotion focuses on improving health and wellbeing; whereas illness prevention involves reducing risk factors for illness, disease, or trauma. As the nurse caring for infants, you’ll collaborate with the registered nurse, or RN, to provide guidance for caregivers on health promotion and illness prevention.

One aspect of health promotion is encouraging bonding, or the emotional ties directed from the caregiver to the infant, that are built by meeting their infant’s needs and through activities like skin-to-skin contact and eye contact.

You can assist caregivers to develop a strong bond with their infant by helping them recognize cues when their infant is cold, hungry, tired, or needs a clean diaper; reviewing ways to respond to their infant using calming techniques like rocking, swaddling, or feeding; offering nonnutritive sucking; or reducing environmental stimuli, like noise or bright lights.

If their infant has colic, which is where their otherwise healthy infant has unexplained irritability and is difficult to soothe, remember to offer empathy and encourage them to use strategies to help soothe their infant, like carrying them face down while supporting their head and abdomen and providing a gentle rocking motion. You can also suggest taking turns with another trusted person to care for their infant to prevent caregiver fatigue, and discussing other options with their health care provider, like trying a modified formula to reduce gastric upset.

Next, reinforce teaching about the role of nutrition in providing sufficient calories and nutrients to promote their infant's rapid growth and development. Be sure to talk about how to recognize their infant’s hunger cues, such as crying; clenched fists; rooting, or moving their head and mouth in search of the nipple; and fullness cues, like falling asleep, relaxing their body, and ejecting the nipple.
Provide them with support to breastfeed or bottle feed, as needed, and help them identify signs of adequate nutrition, like having at least six wet diapers a day, sleeping peacefully, and gaining about four to seven ounces or 115 to 200 grams per week for the first six months.