Newborn Regul8

The Newborn Regul8 framework represents an approach to providing fundamental nursing care to newborns. Developed by Associate Professor Minette Coetzee at the Harry Crossly Children’s Nursing Development Unit (Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, UCT), it evolved from the original Regul8 framework in recognition that supporting optimal autonomic regulation in newborns is a different process than it is in older children. The impetus for the original Regul8 was to align emerging understandings and research outcomes from the neuro sciences and human biology with current children’s nursing practice. Concepts were developed through continuous exploration of these emerging insights and refined through a decade of teaching and learning alongside children’s nursing students, practitioners and educators from across Africa. The Newborn Regul8 framework was designed, further cognisant of the significant advances in pre-and perinatal developmental biology and neurosciences, to comprehensively address the major influences on newborn regulatory function through an intentionally Afrocentric guide to newborn nursing care planning.