Supporting parents in the NICU: A new app from the US, MyPreemie

Abstract This article describes the new MyPreemie app for iPhone and iPad, designed to inform, assist, empower, and support parents of premature babies in the NICU and afterwards. Created by the same team who wrote the book Preemies: The Essential Guide for Parents of Premature Babies, the app contains information on medical and developmental issues; suggested questions for parents to ask doctors and nurses to understand their baby's care; a combined baby journal and adult diary with focused prompts to record events and emotions; tools to track growth; and organizing lists for questions to ask, tasks to do, and mementos to collect. The app's pages can be shared by email or Facebook to facilitate communication with family and friends, and printed in PDF and saved. Overall, the app aims to ease parents' distress by providing meaningful parenting activities during a baby's NICU stay and an increased sense of normality, control, and connection. Nurses are encouraged to advise their patients' families about the MyPreemie app as a way to help meet their practical and emotional needs and support them through the stressful experience of prematurity.