Objective To understand moral distress experience and coping strategies of nurses in neonatal intensive care unit （NICU） through in-depth interview. Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted in 14 nurses on a one-to-one manner by using the phenomenological research method. The contents of the interviews were sorted out and the themes were extracted according to Colaizzi′s data analysis method. Results NICU nurses′ psychological experience of moral distress included loss and anger, sadness and sorrow, powerlessness and frustration, numbness and indifference. Coping strategies included passive acceptance, resilience and seeking for solutions. Conclusion Due to the special nature of NICU infants, moral distress of the NICU nurses is relatively complicated, inflicting nurses with negative emotions, and receiving scare attention from the managers. In the future, it is necessary to further explore interventions aiming to alleviate nurses′ moral distress, make rational use of human resources and improve the quality of nursing care.