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Sunday, November 1, 2009
Learning Objective 1: The learner will be able to identify an inexpensive method to sooth premature infants.
Learning Objective 2: The learner will be able to understand the connection between soothability and activity.
Babies born prematurely in the United States is rising, approaching one half million and representing 20% of births. Premature babies require prolonged hospitalization at a great human and economic cost. The purpose of this study is to test an intervention that has potential to promote parental involvement with the goal of improving premature infants’ ability to soothe themselves, thereby improving outcomes of weight gain and hospital length of stay. Family Centered Care is a conceptual model used to address care delivery in high risk nurseries. This study includes a modified version of this model to explain how the parent-nurse-infant triad working together can decrease hospitalization costs and improve infant outcomes. Touch is an important mode of impacting premature infant outcomes. This study uses a flax seed filled pillow, to stimulate parental touch, allow the newborn to sooth itself, and spend less energy responding to noxious stimuli. It is hypothesized that the newborn will gain weight more efficiently. The participants will be medically stable, premature infants ≥ 30 and ≤ 37 weeks gestation. Forty-four participants will be randomly assigned to experimental or control groups. All infants will receive standard nursery care and the experimental group will receive the flax seed pillow treatment for five consecutive days. Treatment consists of placing a warmed pillow on the infant for 15 minutes twice a day. Vital signs, pain and activity will be measured using actigraphy to quantify soothability. A one-sided t-test will be used to determine whether the infants in the treatment group demonstrate greater levels of soothability. The effect of soothability on weight gain will be examined using ANCOVA to examine the factors of activity and pain. Regression analysis will be used to determine whether premature weight gain is associated with hospital length of stay.