Use of Brazelton neonatal behavioral assessment in planning care for parents and newborns.

Clinical descriptions of newborn behaviors in the Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale can be used by the nurse in planning parent-infant care. Four clusters of behaviors--interactive processes, motoric processes, organizational processes of state control, and organizational processes of physiologic response to stress--have been delineated and infants can be rated as good, poor, or average in each cluster. Nursing interventions are described for both low-risk and high-risk parent-infant pairs.