Summary: Moms already know that their voices can have a soothing effect on their babies. Now a new study has found that a mother's voice can also help premature babies eat better — and that could help them leave the hospital sooner.
By Sharon Mazel | Posted: February 24, 2014
What do you do when your baby's crying…or whimpering…or just plain fussy? While you might reach for the pacifier or start pacing the floors with baby in your arms, it's also likely that you'll begin singing a lullaby or whispering a calming "ah, ah, baby" mantra to soothe your munchkin. That's because you know intuitively that singing or speaking softly can have a calming effect on your little one. And research backs that up: Hearing a parent's voice helps babies regulate their heartbeat, improves their sleep, and helps them grow.
Researchers at the Vanderbilt Children's Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, wanted to see if they could harness this calming effect of a mom's voice to help preemies improve their feeding skills. After all, preemies sometimes have to stay in the hospital because they haven't developed the strength and coordination to nurse properly. And doctors often give these preemies pacifiers to help improve their sucking skills. But what if they combined the sucking practicing with a boost from mom's singing, the researchers wondered?
For their study published in the journal Pediatrics, the researchers gave specially designed pacifiers to nearly 50 premature babies who had been born between 34 and 36 weeks of gestation and were relying on a feeding tube for their nutrition. When the babies sucked on the pacifiers correctly, it played a recording of their mothers singing. The babies practiced with the pacifiers for 15 minutes, five times a day for five days. Around 50 other premature babies were used as the control group and were not given the specially designed pacifiers.
Babies in both groups gained about the same amount of weight, but those in the special pacifier group developed a stronger sucking ability, ate more frequently, and were able to have their feeding tubes removed about a week earlier than babies who didn't use the pacifier.
"Premature babies have to figure out how to coordinate sucking, swallowing their own saliva and breathing. It's an incredibly difficult task for babies, and it's tiring," said the study's senior author. "Mom's voice is an excellent stimulant [and] it only took the babies a day or two to learn that if they sucked with the right strength and the right pattern, they would be able to hear their mother's voice singing." And hearing the sound of their mothers singing them a lullaby was reward enough to push them to learn how to coordinate all the different tasks for successful eating.
Though it's unlikely you'll have access to such a specially designed pacifier, you don't have to go far to tap into the power of your own voice. Singing and talking to your preemie can harness these same benefits, giving your little one the boost he needs for feeding success. It doesn't matter if you sing off key or if you mangle the words of a classic lullaby. Your voice is powerful enough and could help your baby tremendously.
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