Basic care of the newborn involves many important topics. Infant safety is essential, both in the hospital and at home, and nurses must reinforce this topic as often as possible.

Nurses teach parents to identify hospital staff by their picture ID badges and, if badges are not easily visible, to ask to see them. Nurses should check parents’ and infant’s ID bands to make sure that the numbers match any time the family has been separated.

influenza — viral illness that can cause many of the same symptoms as the common cold but is accompanied by severe body aches and higher fever; commonly referred to as the flu. physiologic regurgitation — (also: reflux ) spitting up of stomach contents in infants, or reflux, that occurs when the lower esophageal sphincter muscle lets the stomach contents back into the esophagus…. umbilical hernia — hernia caused by a small hole in the muscular part of the abdominal wall that allows the tissue to bulge out when there is increased abdominal pressure (e.g., crying). respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) — contagious virus causing an illness that is more serious than a cold or upper respiratory infection.