Research affirms supportive touch aids premature infants in NICU

March 22 (UPI) -- Research shows early brain development in premature infants can be significantly impacted by light or supportive touch in the neonatal intensive care unit, or NICU.

Approximately 15 million preterm infants are born each year and spend their first weeks or months in the NICU.

A collaboration between teams at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt University in Nashville and Lausanne University in Switzerland showed the effects of supportive touch on premature infants in the NICU.

Previous research has found that painful procedures and loud noises from medical equipment can have negative effects on premature infants in the NICU.

The researchers found a reduction in electrical activity in the part of the brain that responds to light touch in premature infants in the NICU compared to full-term infants. However, when infants are given supportive touch such as skin-to-skin contact known as kangaroo care and breastfeeding, their brains responded more strongly to light touch.

"Parents should know that every minute they hold their baby counts," Dr. Nathalie Maitre, associate professor of pediatrics, medical director of the NICU Follow-up Program and principal investigator in the Center for Perinatal Research at Nationwide Children's Hospital, said in a press release.

Touch can have significant impacts on brain development especially in very premature infants, she said.

"Touch is a critical building block of infant learning," Maitre said. "It helps babies learn how to move their bodies, how to discover the world around them and how to communicate with their families."

The researchers compared the cortical responses to light touch among 125 premature and full-term infants at the children's hospital at Vanderbilt, and found preterm infants had decreased responses to light touch when they were discharged from the NICU compared to full-term infants.

"It is absolutely essential to minimize exposure to painful procedures that infants can often experience during hospitalizations," said Mark Wallace, dean of the Graduate School at Vanderbilt. "Until new research can prove which medications work at preventing these changes in brain function, we need to focus on effective non-pharmacological alternatives."

The study was published in Current Biology.