The purpose of this study was to understand the actual needs of the parents of premature babies and what their nurses perceived about those, and to what extent, were the order of importance and satisfaction of meeting the needs, of parents of premature babies. Samples included 38 parents and 28 nurses. From the NICU of a medical center in Central Taiwan. Questionnaires for the study was mainly based on the "Critical Care Family Needs Inventory" developed by Molter and Leske (1983). It contains 44 items of needs divided into 5 categories--support, comfort, information, approaching patients, and reassurance. The results showed that the total average score of the 44 items of the parents was 3.59��0.3, indicating that these needs were very important. Of these 44 items, 37 items (84.1%) had an average score higher than that of the nurses, and 24 items (54.55%) showed a significance. The order of importance was information, reassurance, approaching patients, support and comfort respectively. There was a significant difference in the needs of information, reassurance, patient approaching between the parents and nurses. Seventeen items (38.6%) meet with 80% of satisfaction or higher, with 64.25% identical to that of the nurses. This study also provides some suggestions for nursing practice as well as education.