Reflecting on our experience as nurses in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), as well as on the urgency in the assistance to hospitalized newborns (NB), we aimed at describing the interaction between nurses and NBs during the practice of care in the oral tracheal aspiration and in the blood collection for laboratory exams, with emphasis on the physiological and behavioral responses. This is an exploratory and descriptive research, in which we used the Paterson and Zderad Theory (1976). It was conducted in a public maternity ward in Fortaleza, State of Ceará, with six nurses and 21 babies at risk. The data was collected in the period from April to June, 2003. The results showed that, when interacting with nurses, NBs show increased heart rate, decreased oxygen saturation, weeping expression, agitation, tranquility, calmness. Most of the times nurses used the technical touch, but, as we could observe, the relations I-Thou, and I-It, based on the Humanistic Theory, which can be applied in the babies' everyday care.
Nurse-patient relations; Nursing care; Infant, premature; Intensive care units, neonatal
