Tactile stimulation and behavioral development among low-birthweight infants

Abstract

The Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale was administered to a group of premature infants both prior to and following a nursery program of enriched tactile stimulation. The same instrument was administered twice to a control group of prematures who received no intervening "extra" stimulation. Whereas control infants showed changes of 2 or more points on only 2 of the instrument's 26 scales, the experimental babies showed positive changes of 2 or more points on 11 scales. There were no difference in weight gain between the two groups.

Effects of Rocking on Neuromuscular Development in the Premature

“…The results of this study confirm and ex pand the findings of previous studies using motion stimulation as a form of therapy [29][30][31][32][33]. The stimulus was designed to concen trate its effects on the horizontal semicircu lar canals, but the incubator conditions ne cessitated that other sensory modalities were unavoidably involved.…”

“…Other studies reporting an increase in body weight, although not statistically significant, pro vided treatment over a shorter time span; 10 days to about 7 weeks [9,10,29,30]. Studies reporting no change in body weight provided stimulation from only 7-14 days [13,18,31,32], Although the form of sensory stimulation varied among these studies and treatment time span overlapped somewhat, it appears that the duration of the treatment period is a critical factor in effecting a significant change in body weight. Exposure time per day may also play a role, since in the study by Kramer and Pierpont [ 15] which showed a significant weight gain, 60-min sessions of sensory stimulation, 8 times/day were used.…”

Massage with kinesthetic stimulation improves weight gain in preterm infants

“…This is consistent with results of other trials that have evaluated gentle still touch 13 or massage alone and found no difference in weight gain between intervention groups and controls. 10,14 However, when massage has been combined with KS or physical activity, benefits have been more consistently demonstrated.…”

The development of potentially better practices to support the neurodevelopment of infants in the NICU

“…187,192 Weight gain may be mediated by increased nutritional intake 195 and/or through increased vagal activity and gastric motility. 196,197 These infants also demonstrated increased heart rate, improved autonomic stability, 198 and increased range and regulation of behavioral states 186,190,199,200 with decreased stress behaviors. 190 The variations in physiologic measures and behavioral observation are interesting in that massage may have a stimulatory effect on specific activity of the sympathetic nervous system.…”