Effects of parents' voice on reducing heel puncture pain in high‐risk newborns: A randomized controlled trial

Abstract

BackgroundHigh‐risk newborns, such as premature or severely ill infants, often experience painful treatments and separation from their parents. While previous studies have focused on the positive impacts of a mother's voice on newborns' physiology and pain response, research on the father's voice and vocal acoustics in high‐risk newborns is limited.AimTo examine whether parents' voices reduce heel puncture pain in high‐risk newborns and the relationship between parents' vocal acoustics, physiological parameters and pain response.Study DesignA randomized controlled clinical trial was conducted with 105 high‐risk newborn–parent dyads. Participants were randomly assigned to three groups: recorded mother's voice, recorded father's voice or control group without any recorded voice. Outcome measures included heart rate, respiratory rate, oxygen saturation and pain response assessed using the Neonatal Infant Pain Scale. Data analysis utilized generalized estimation equations, and parents' vocal acoustics were analysed using Praat voice credit software.ResultsThe mother's voice group exhibited significantly lower heart rates at 1, 5 and 10 min after the procedure, along with lower respiratory rates and pain levels at 5 and 10 min after the procedure compared with the control group. Similarly, the father's voice group demonstrated significantly lower heart rates at 1 and 5 min after the procedure, decreased respiratory rates at 5 and 10 min after the procedure and reduced pain levels at 1 and 5 to 10 min after the procedure compared with the control group. Higher minimum and mean pitches in parents' voices correlated with slower heart rates, while slower parental speech was associated with reduced newborn pain.ConclusionBoth maternal and paternal vocal interventions alleviated pain during heel puncture procedures among high‐risk newborns.Relevance to Clinical PracticeThe noninvasive intervention serves as a reference for parental participation in care. Nurses can help parents to intervene with the acoustic characteristics that alleviate pain among high‐risk newborns.

Heart-to-heart: infant heart rate at 3 months is linked to infant-directed speech, mother–infant interaction, and later language outcomes

“…More specifically, a higher occurrence of maternal IDS in the home environment during 1:1 interaction is associated with lower infant heart rate measured during mother–infant interaction in the laboratory. This finding is in line with previous studies that explored the relation between infant heart rate and exposure to social stimuli such as speech input, which found a decrease in infant heart rate during exposure to IDS ( Santesso et al, 2007 ; Curtindale et al, 2019 ; Lin et al, 2023 ). The authors speculated that IDS is attentionally engaging ( Santesso et al, 2007 ).…”

“…The stimuli included a recording of their mother or their father reading a children’s book. Results showed that higher-pitched voices, which is one of the main characteristics of IDS, were correlated with slower heart rates ( Lin et al, 2023 ).…”

“…In the current study, we investigated whether infant heart rate (HR) is related to speech input in the home environment and to prospective language development in a longitudinal study. To date, the few studies that have explored the association between infant HR and complex auditory input report a pattern of decrease in infant HR following exposure to IDS ( Santesso et al, 2007 ; Curtindale et al, 2019 ; Lin et al, 2023 ) and musical stimuli ( Schmidt et al, 2003 ). Heart rate has long been used as a physiological marker of attention ( Sokolov, 1963 ; Graham and Jackson, 1970 ; Porges, 1992 ; Courage et al, 2006 ), and research indicates that attention is associated with early language learning ( Çetinçelik et al, 2021 for review).…”