Aims: The birth of an infant requiring cares in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is one of the stressful sources in life. The aim of this study was to determine the stressful sources in mothers of infants in NICU. 

Instrument & Methods: In the descriptive study, all mothers of infants hospitalized in NICU of Hajar Hospital in Shahr-e-Kord were studied in 2011. The subjects (n=110) were selected by census method. Data was collected by family information form and Miles and Funk’s parent stress questionnaire.  Data was analyzed by SPSS 18 software using Spearman and Kruskal-Wallis correlation analyses noticing data abnormality.

Findings: There were no significant correlation between educational level, type of child birth, mother’s job, and residence place and mothers’ stressors (p>0.05). There were significant and reverse correlations between environmental stressor and birth weight of infant (p=0.025; r=-0.213), mother’s age (p=0.034; r=-0.203), and income (p=0.002; r=-0.292). There was no significant correlation between relation stressor and any demographic characteristics. There were significant correlations between the status of home resident and environmental (p=0.031), face (p=0.008), and relation (p=0.0001) stressors.

Conclusion: The mothers describe their own experiences of NICU as stressful. In addition, the environmental stressors affect such experiences in the highest level.