Final answer:
The nurse would tell the parents that the surfactant therapy improves the baby's lung expansion by reducing surface tension, making it easier for the lungs to inflate and function properly.
Step-by-step explanation:
The nurse would explain the surfactant therapy to the parents by describing how it improves the baby's lung expansion. Artificial surfactant acts similarly to a detergent by reducing the surface tension within the lungs, making it easier for the alveoli, the tiny air sacs in the lungs, to stay open and inflate properly. This is crucial for premature infants who often lack sufficient natural surfactant, a substance that mature lungs normally produce to keep the alveoli from collapsing and reducing the work required to breathe.
Option c, "It improves the baby's lung expansion," is the correct way to describe the benefit of surfactant therapy. Therefore, the answer to the question, "How would the nurse explain the surfactant therapy to the parents?" is that it helps to reduce the effort needed for the premature infant to breathe by decreasing the surface tension, facilitating easier inflation of the lungs, and preventing the collapse of smaller alveoli.