NICU music therapy: Post hoc analysis of an early intervention clinical program

Optimizing Neonatal Prefeeding Habilitation: A Holistic Approach Integrating Neonatal Learning Behaviors, Motor Development, and Evidence-Based Interventions

Neonatal clinicians utilize prefeeding interventions with premature infants to promote a natural process of oral-sensory development, hoping to prepare the infant for future oral feeding. Prefeeding interventions require a holistic approach, ensuring infants are actively involved in learning. Therapists can achieve this by prioritizing the development of intentionality, which is the conscious pursuit of action driven by motivation. The authors present a conceptual model of six neonatal behavioral states of learning called the "Neonatal Intentional Capacities." This model illustrates how purposeful actions evolve into extended learning sequences and helps determine how well an infant can participate in learning experiences. The authors will elucidate the dynamic relationship between intentionality and the development of adaptive motor skills of prefeeding. Lastly, this article presents a consolidated and categorized grouping of current evidence-based prefeeding interventions. Utilizing the framework presented, the authors offer clinical guidance to support prefeeding treatment planning.

Music therapy in tertiary neonatal intensive care: A matter of unlikely allies?

Over the past decades, music therapy in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) has been proven effective in physiological and psychological outcomes, including sucking, behaviour, stress reduction, neurodevelopment and promoting emotional bonding. However, not every NICU administers music therapy in their ward. Research on music therapy for neonates and their caregivers has lately accumulated, increasing the evidence of health benefits on brain development and across a variety of NICU-related pathologies, including neurological, cardiological, pulmonary and gastrointestinal problems. Conclusively, we will present the studied methods of music therapy for clinical benefits in neonatal intensive care.

Non-pharmacological measures in preterm newborns submitted to arterial puncture

OBJECTIVE

to assess pain in preterm newborns and to compare the neonatal and therapeutic variables with the total scores of the Neonatal Facial Coding System of preterm newborns submitted to arterial puncture exposed to music and 25% oral glucose.

METHOD

a comparative study with 48 recordings of preterm newborns - Group 1, music (26); Group 2, glucose 25% (22) - individually analyzed by three trained nurses, after Kappa of at least 80%.

RESULTS

the variables and the pain scores of the groups did not present statistical significance (p < 0.05) according to the Neonatal Facial Coding System. 80.8% of the preterm infants in Group 1 had a higher quantitative score ≥ 3 in the neonatal variables (gender, type of delivery), and therapeutic variables (type of oxygen therapy, place of hospitalization, type of puncture).

CONCLUSION

There was no difference when comparing the music and glucose 25% groups and the variables studied.

Text Watch

The BJMT Text Watch appears in the second issue of each volume. It aims to raise awareness of music therapy writing outside the principal English language music therapy journals, and to act as a guide to the proliferating literature of our profession. It seeks to draw attention to relevant material from publications that may be less accessible to music therapists, and which therefore might otherwise be overlooked.1

Text Watch includes music therapy and related publications in English that have been published in the current or previous calendar year2- books, chapters, articles, published conference papers and other published media (CD-ROMs, videos, etc).

Please note that articles published in English language music therapy journals are listed in Journal Watch (included in the first issue of each volume).