PURPOSE
The purpose of this study was to identify whether hearing a recording of mother's voice affected physiological reactions, behavioral state related to sleep and weight of very low birth weight (VLBW) infants.
METHODS
This was a nonequivalent control group pre-post test quasi-experimental design. The participants were 11 VLBW infants in the experimental group and 11 in the control group. In the experimental group, a recording of mother's voice was played to her infant by voice recorder four times each day for five minutes over 10 consecutive days in the incubator.
RESULTS
For physiological response (heart rate, respiration rate, oxygen saturation), there were statistically significant differences between the experimental and control groups. Behavioral state during sleep was more very quiet and quiet in the experimental group. In the daily weight change, there was no significant difference between the experimental and control groups.
CONCLUSION
The findings suggest that, for VLBW infants, the intervention of hearing a recording of mother's voice had some significance as a nursing intervention having a positive impact. Such interventions can help pediatric nurses to stabilize the physiological response and maintenance more very quiet sleep state and improve VLBW infants' growth.

Citations

• Exploration of Family-Centered Care in NICUs: A Grounded Theory Methodology
  Young Ah Park, YeoJin Im
  Qualitative Health Research.2025; 35(10-11): 1231.     CrossRef
• The Effect of Maternal Voice on Venipuncture Induced Pain in Neonates: A Randomized Study
  Yanjun Chen, Yang Li, Jing Sun, Dongren Han, Shuju Feng, Xin Zhang
  Pain Management Nursing.2021; 22(5): 668.     CrossRef
• Differences in perceived parental stress between parents with very low birth weight infants and nurses in neonatal intensive care units, South Korea
  Seol-Hee Moon, Ho-Ran Park, Dong Yeon Kim
  Child Health Nursing Research.2021; 27(3): 297.     CrossRef
• Effects of tactile stimulation by fathers on physiological responses and paternal attachment in infants in the NICU
  Min A Kim, Shin-Jeong Kim, Haeryun Cho
  Journal of Child Health Care.2017; 21(1): 36.     CrossRef

We studied the effects of nonnutritive sucking(NNS) on lingual lipase activity and body weight under bottle feeding with 17 premature infants hospitalized . NNS was applied to nine infants and other eight infants comprised the control group. Pacifiers were applied to the experimental group for 5 minutes before and after bottle feeding. The treatment took approximately 20-25 minutes each time including bottle feeding time and was applied 7 times a day at intervals of 3 hours and for consecutive ten days. Lingual lipase activity and body weight were measured on the first, third, seventh and tenth day. Results and Conclusion : 1. Lingual lipase activity was low at 30 minutes after feeding and then began to increase reaching its highest level at 120 and 180 minutes after the feeding in both group. 2. Lingual lipase activity in the experimental group was not higher than that of the control group on the third, seventh and tenth day. 3. Body weight increased in experimental and control groups as days passed, while it was not significantly different between groups. These results lead to conclusion that among premature infants under bottle feeding, NNS is not effective in increasing the lingual lipase for fat digestion and NNS is not also effective for increasing body weight. The application of NNS to premature infants under bottle feeding needs considerable judgement for promoting well-being of nursing goals.

This is a nonequivalent control group pretest- posttest design in quasi experimental basis to assess how the thermal head and feet support influences on early stage weight gain in premature neonates. The clients were selected among the premature infants with the weight under 2000gms and with the gestational period under 37 weeks, admitted over 15 days in K university hospital, Seoul. The control group of 29 were selected from January 1998 to August 1998, who were without head and feet thermal support, and the experimental group of 30 were selected from September 1998 to May 1999, who were with the two thermal interventions. The results of the study follow, 1.The experimental group with thermal interventions showed more weight gain than the control group without thermal interventions, which was statistically significant between the two groups. 2.The physiological weight loss after birth showed less in the experimental group than in the control group. 3.The recovery of the birth weight after the physiologic weight loss showed no statistical difference between the experimental group and the control group. Consequently, the thermal head and feet supportive nursing intervention could be applied as a nursing intervention program to help the premature neonates' development. With the results above we should like to suggest the following: 1) A continuous application in the practice of our thermal supportive intervention for the premature neonates, a development of the content through evaluation, and a comparision of the results through a long time study. 2) A neccessity of deveopment of various study and cross comparision. 3) A neccessity of multi-angular study on the premature infants' characteristics influencing the thermal therapy and the study of the individual differences of the clients.