Mother’s voice good for preemie’s heart, lung
Premature babies who listen to recordings of their mother's heartbeat and voice are less likely to experience heart and respiratory conditions, a small US study suggests.
The trial included 14 extremely premature infants, born between 26 and 32 weeks gestation who were hospitalized in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) in Boston.
Researchers played recordings of the mother’s voice and heart into the babies’ incubators through a specialized audio system four times a day.
Findings revealed that babies who listened to their mother’s recordings were less likely to experience cardiorespiratory events compared to those who just heard routine hospital sounds and noises.
“Our findings show that there may be a window of opportunity to improve the physiological health of these babies born prematurely using non-pharmalogical treatments, such as auditory stimulation,” said lead author Amir Lahav whose study appeared in the Journal of Maternal-Fetal and Neonatal Medicine.
“Our findings are promising in showing that exposure to MSS (maternal sound stimulation) could help preterm infants in the short-term by reducing cardiorespiratory events,” he added.
“The results also suggest that there is a period of time when the infant's auditory development is most intact that this intervention of MSS could be most impactful,” noted Lahav suggesting further studies to determine if this intervention could have an impact on the health of preterm infants.
Source: presstv.com
