Multimodal Neurological Enhancement Intervention for Self-regulation in Premature Infants.

Background: The neonatal intensive care unit is often a noisy, overstimulating environment that disrupts infants' regulation of physiological and behavioral states and interrupts caregiver bonding; however, infants benefit from early intervention, including the use of multimodal neurological enhancement (MMNE) intervention to provide appropriate neurodevelopmental stimulation. No one has investigated whether it assists infants in self-regulation.

Purpose: The purpose of this retrospective longitudinal analysis was to examine the effect of a music therapy intervention, MMNE, on self-regulation of premature infants as measured by changes in heart rate (HR).

A randomised controlled trial of protocolised music therapy demonstrates developmental milestone acquisition in hospitalised infants.

Aim: To compare the effectiveness of an intensive-intermittent vs. standard spaced protocolised music therapy intervention on supporting developmental milestone acquisition of infants >44 weeks postmenstrual age (PMA) hospitalised in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).

Method: This was a comparative effectiveness study of infants 44-66 weeks PMA with a projected NICU stay of at least one month from recruitment.

Feasibility of event-related potential (ERP) biomarker use to study effects of mother's voice exposure on speech sound differentiation of preterm infants.

Atypical maturation of auditory neural processing contributes to preterm-born infants' language delays. Event-related potential (ERP) measurement of speech-sound differentiation might fill a gap in treatment-response biomarkers to auditory interventions. We evaluated whether these markers could measure treatment effects in a quasi-randomized prospective study.

Parenteral nutrition as an unexpected and preventable source of mercury exposure in preterm infants.

Perinatal mercury exposure has neurodevelopmental consequences, which may be worse in preterm infants. In our cohort (N = 60), maternal and infant prenatal exposures were low, but infant levels increased during hospitalization and correlated only with duration of parenteral nutrition. A non-negligible exposure resulted from the nutrition preparation on equipment shared with adult preparations.