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Sensory Stimulation in the NICU Environment: Devices, Systems, and Procedures to Protect and Stimulate Premature Babies

Prematurity deprives infants of the prenatal sensory stimulation essential to their correct development; in addition, the stressful environment of the NICU impacts negatively on their growth. The purpose of this review was to investigate the effects of NICU noise pollution on preterm infants and par...

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Autores principales: Vitale, Francesco Massimo, Chirico, Gaetano, Lentini, Carmen
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8146433/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33923031
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/children8050334
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author Vitale, Francesco Massimo
Chirico, Gaetano
Lentini, Carmen
author_facet Vitale, Francesco Massimo
Chirico, Gaetano
Lentini, Carmen
author_sort Vitale, Francesco Massimo
collection PubMed
description Prematurity deprives infants of the prenatal sensory stimulation essential to their correct development; in addition, the stressful environment of the NICU impacts negatively on their growth. The purpose of this review was to investigate the effects of NICU noise pollution on preterm infants and parents. We focused on the systems and projects used to control and modulate sounds, as well as on those special devices and innovative systems used to deliver maternal sounds and vibrations to this population. The results showed beneficial effects on the preterm infants in different areas such as physiological, autonomic, and neurobehavioral development. Although most of these studies highlight positive reactions, there is also a general acknowledgement of the current limits: small and heterogeneous groups, lack of structured variable measurements, systematic control groups, longitudinal studies, and normative values. The mother’s presence is always preferred, but the use of music therapy and the devices analyzed, although not able to replace her presence, aim to soften her absence through familiar and protective stimuli, which is a very powerful aid during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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spelling pubmed-81464332021-05-26 Sensory Stimulation in the NICU Environment: Devices, Systems, and Procedures to Protect and Stimulate Premature Babies Vitale, Francesco Massimo Chirico, Gaetano Lentini, Carmen Children (Basel) Review Prematurity deprives infants of the prenatal sensory stimulation essential to their correct development; in addition, the stressful environment of the NICU impacts negatively on their growth. The purpose of this review was to investigate the effects of NICU noise pollution on preterm infants and parents. We focused on the systems and projects used to control and modulate sounds, as well as on those special devices and innovative systems used to deliver maternal sounds and vibrations to this population. The results showed beneficial effects on the preterm infants in different areas such as physiological, autonomic, and neurobehavioral development. Although most of these studies highlight positive reactions, there is also a general acknowledgement of the current limits: small and heterogeneous groups, lack of structured variable measurements, systematic control groups, longitudinal studies, and normative values. The mother’s presence is always preferred, but the use of music therapy and the devices analyzed, although not able to replace her presence, aim to soften her absence through familiar and protective stimuli, which is a very powerful aid during the COVID-19 pandemic. MDPI 2021-04-25 /pmc/articles/PMC8146433/ /pubmed/33923031 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/children8050334 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Vitale, Francesco Massimo
Chirico, Gaetano
Lentini, Carmen
Sensory Stimulation in the NICU Environment: Devices, Systems, and Procedures to Protect and Stimulate Premature Babies
title Sensory Stimulation in the NICU Environment: Devices, Systems, and Procedures to Protect and Stimulate Premature Babies
title_full Sensory Stimulation in the NICU Environment: Devices, Systems, and Procedures to Protect and Stimulate Premature Babies
title_fullStr Sensory Stimulation in the NICU Environment: Devices, Systems, and Procedures to Protect and Stimulate Premature Babies
title_full_unstemmed Sensory Stimulation in the NICU Environment: Devices, Systems, and Procedures to Protect and Stimulate Premature Babies
title_short Sensory Stimulation in the NICU Environment: Devices, Systems, and Procedures to Protect and Stimulate Premature Babies
title_sort sensory stimulation in the nicu environment: devices, systems, and procedures to protect and stimulate premature babies
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8146433/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33923031
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/children8050334
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