Premium
Patterned auditory stimulation and suck dynamics in full‐term infants
Author(s) -
Zimmerman Emily,
Foran Megan
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
acta paediatrica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.772
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1651-2227
pISSN - 0803-5253
DOI - 10.1111/apa.13751
Subject(s) - cardiorespiratory fitness , stimulation , medicine , audiology , repeated measures design , pacifier , bursting , neuroscience , psychology , pediatrics , statistics , mathematics , breastfeeding
Aim To determine whether patterned auditory stimuli, designed to mimic the natural burst‐pause pattern evident in non‐nutritive suck ( NNS ) with variations to the intraburst frequency, alter infants’ NNS and cardiorespiratory patterning. Methods Sixteen healthy full‐term infants participated in this study. Infants were fitted with electrocardiogram electrodes and a respiratory belt to measure cardiorespiratory patterning. Infants were offered a custom pacifier attached to a pressure transducer to measure NNS . Prior to the start of the study, a two‐minute NNS and cardiorespiratory baseline was attained. Next, three auditory stimulation conditions were presented in the form of sucking clicks at interburst frequencies of 1, 2 and 4 Hz. Each of the three frequencies was played for two minutes. Results Separate repeated‐measures ANOVA s revealed significant differences in NNS burst duration (p = 0.013), NNS cycles/burst (p = 0.010) and NNS bursts/minute (p = 0.005) across auditory stimulation conditions. No significant differences were evident in the cardiorespiratory outcomes. Conclusion We found that patterned auditory stimulation significantly reduced NNS dynamics and had no effect on cardiorespiratory patterning. The findings further suggest that infants attempted to modulate their suck pattern to the patterned acoustic stimuli by shortening their burst durations with fewer cycles per burst.