Letters

Thank you to authors Murphy-Oikonen, Brownlee, Montelpare, and Gerlach for their article in the September/ October 2010 issue on "The Experiences of NICU Nurses Caring for Infants with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome." Some important points were raised about the impact of providing care to this group of infants on NICU nurses and I greatly appreciated the honesty of the feedback and analysis. Many of the comments mirrored what I have experienced personally in over 15 years of working in NICU settings. I would like to share a more recent part of my work that builds on the final comments of the authors on the need for education about addiction and substance use and attitude changes by the nurses with the hopes that it may provide some ideas for how nurses can address these needs in their workplaces.