Newborn Nursing Care: HSA Eligibility

What is newborn nursing care?

Soon after a child is born, nurses have a wealth of standard assessments they will have to perform during the moment the child is delivered. These tests are a fixture of newborn care and will make up some of the total cost of delivering the child, but these expenses are eligible for reimbursement with consumer-directed healthcare accounts are meant to give parents the best possible foundation to develop a standard of care to suit their child's needs moving forward.

Newborn nursing care includes a wide slate of tests that nurses will start performing soon after the child is being assessed for the first time. Some of the most common tests include via Merck Manuals:

• Apgar Scoring: This test is conducted within the first 1-5 minutes of the child's life that measures the baby's heart rate, muscle ton, respiratory rate and reflex irritability to assess whether the child is in serious danger and will need resuscitation or if he/she is in good health and will need no advanced medical attention.
• Physical Examination: The next major step in newborn nursing care is to perform a full physical examination of the newborn to detect any observable conditions and physical defects present. Other pieces of data that are included in this assessment include the newborn's height/weight, a quick heel-stick test for blood studies and glucose measurement, and finally a behavioral capacity test.
• Post-birth newborn care: Immediately following these tests, the child is placed in newborn care, where he/she is put on a radiant heat table, placed under warm blankets or administered oxygen. Basic information such as the child's name, his parents' information, foot prints and other forms of identification are taken during this period as well.
• Postpartum newborn care: Last but not least, newborn nursing care involves preparing the new parents for the administration of care at home. This will contain information about proper feeding/breastfeeding techniques, how to bath/clothe the child, common illnesses ailments to affect newborns, diaper changes, common skin conditions and much more. Ideally, by the end of the newborn nursing care process, the child should be healthy and the parents should be prepared to take over care for their child.