Maternal voice and short‐term outcomes in preterm infants

Abstract

This study explored effects of exposure to maternal voice on short-term outcomes in very low birth weight preterm infants cared for within an neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) without an ongoing program of developmental care. Using a comparative design, 53 infants born during their 27th to 28th postmenstrual week were sampled by convenience. Experimental groups were exposed to maternal voice during two developmental time periods. Group 1 listened to a recording of their mothers reciting a rhyme from 28 to 34 postmenstrual weeks. Group 2 waited 4 weeks and heard the recording from 32 to 34 weeks. The control group received routine care. The primary analysis of combined experimental groups compared to the control group revealed that the experimental infants experienced significantly fewer episodes of feeding intolerance and achieved full enteral feeds quicker compared to the control group. Further, in an analysis evaluating all three groups separately, it was noted that Group 1 experienced significantly fewer episodes of feeding intolerance compared to the control group. Study findings warrant further investigation of exposure to maternal voice and the developmental timing at which exposure is begun.

Language Exposure of Preterm Infants in the Neonatal Unit: A Systematic Review

“…Seven studies were rated weak by the review authors [38-40, 42-44, 48], 2 were rated moderate [41,47], and 3 were rated strong [26,45,46]. The study designs included 1 randomised controlled trial [48], 3 controlled clinical trials [39,42,45], 1 cohort study [43], 2 case-control trials [26,41], 4 interrupted time series [40,44,46,47] and 1 crossover trial [38]. Most of the sample sizes were small and assessed as either "somewhat likely" or "not likely" to be representative of the target population.…”

“…Two studies used the live maternal voice as the exposure stimulus [26,40], one used the recorded maternal voice via a bone conduction device attached to the participant's wrist [41] and all other studies used the recorded maternal voice delivered by tape recorder [48], micro speaker [38,39,42,[45][46][47] or earphones [43,44]. Five studies filtered the maternal voice through a low-pass filter prior to the intervention and combined it with biological sounds and heartbeats to replicate the in utero environment [38,42,[45][46][47].…”

“…A total of 39 articles were excluded and 10 articles reporting language exposure of preterm infants in the neonatal unit were identified as eligible for inclusion. These were categorised by study type and included 3 observational studies in 4 published articles (Table 2) [22][23][24]37] and 6 language intervention studies (Table 3) [26,[38][39][40][41][42]. The reference lists of all included articles were searched and 6 additional intervention studies [43][44][45][46][47][48] were determined to be eligible for inclusion.…”

The Effectiveness of Music and Mother's Voice on Pain Reduction During Venepuncture in Neonates- A Randomized Control Trial.

“…Various measures to reduce pain during venepuncture have been explored, including positioning and restraining the neonate in relatively flexed posture, kangaroo care, breastfeeding, use of oral analgesics, oral sucrose / saccharine solutions, tactile stimulation, skin-cooling techniques, skin-to-skin care, non nutritive sucking pacifiers, music therapy, etc (7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12) . Music therapy offers a safe and harmless intervention for reducing pain in neonates.…”

Individualized Developmental Care in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: Current Approaches: Review

“…Literatürde anne sesinin yenidoğanın normal fetal gelişiminin şekillenmesini ve duyusal sistemlerin olgunlaşmasını sağladığı belirtilmektedir. 47,48 Anne sesinin yanında, ritmik ve önerilen desibeldeki mü-ziğin de YYBÜ'de istenmeyen gürültüyü örterek preterm yenidoğanlar için enerji verici, yatıştırıcı, uyarıcı, uyandırıcı rol oynadığı ve fizyolojik parametreler üzerine olumlu etkisinin olduğu belirtilmektedir. 49,50 Görüldüğü gibi YYBÜ'de önemli bir stresör olan ses faktörü, rahatsız edici etkenler ortadan kaldırıldığında yenidoğanlar için tedavi edici yöntem olabilmektedir.…”