Bilateral Infant Stimulation Study

Launched by OREGON HEALTH AND SCIENCE UNIVERSITY · Apr 5, 2024

Keywords

ClinConnect Summary

The Bilateral Infant Stimulation Study is exploring how parents of babies in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) experience stress and anxiety. The researchers want to see if a new technique called bilateral alternating stimulation can help reduce this stress and improve the emotional connection between parents and their babies. Parents who participate will fill out surveys about their stress levels and feelings of bonding with their child before and after the intervention, which will take place at the baby's bedside. The study will also monitor the vital signs of both the parent and baby to understand how they respond to the intervention.

To be eligible for the study, parents must have a baby in the NICU who is between 34 to 43 weeks of age. The baby should also be within four weeks of their NICU admission. It's important that the parent or legal guardian is willing to take part in the study. However, parents who have had surgery recently, are taking certain medications that affect the brain, or have specific medical conditions may not be able to participate. This study aims to create a supportive environment for families during a challenging time and to understand better how to improve parent-child relationships in the NICU.

Gender

ALL

Eligibility criteria

• Inclusion Criteria:
• • admitted to the NICU at the time of study
• • greater than 34 weeks gestational age and less than 43 weeks gestational age
• • within 4 weeks of admission to NICU at time of initial contact
• • have parent or legal guardian willing and able to participate in the study
• Exclusion Criteria:
• • those who are less than 3 days postop from surgical procedures
• • current use of psychotropic medications or medications that affect the central nervous system (CNS)
• • CNS anomaly.