Biomedical Research

Preterm infants are babies born before completion of 37 w of gestation. Their organs are immature especially brain. Sleep has a vital role in brain development and maturation in infants. Neonatal intensive care unit is a place where infant’s comfort is disturbed by many environmental stimuli. So the sleep is disrupted. Nesting facilitates transformation of sleep pattern from erratic disturbed spells to deep peaceful nights and contented days. This study aimed to investigate the effect of nesting on sleep pattern of infants hospitalized in NICUs. This crossover clinical trial was performed at a tertiary Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). 21 preterm infants who met the inclusion criteria were enrolled. They were randomly assigned to two groups of nest and routine procedure. Sleep status was evaluated by using neonatal sleep assessment Scale. Duration of Total Sleep Time per cycle (TST) and duration of each stage such as quiet sleep, active sleep indeterminate sleep were recorded and analysed by using paired t-test. Duration of Total Sleep Time per cycle (TST) and duration of each stage were significantly higher among preterm with nesting than usual procedure of care (p<0.001). Duration of sleep time in each stages shows, duration of active sleep is significantly reduced (34.76) with nesting as compared to routine care (39.55) although which is not significant (t=1.134, P=0.270) there is significant increase in quiet sleep (63.62 ± 17.957) with nesting than with routine care and indeterminate sleep time was increased with nesting as compared with sleep in routine care which is highly significant (t=4.570, p<0.001), (t=2.297, p=0.003) at 0.05 level of significance. The present study results supports the use of nesting aids in increase sleep and duration of quiet sleep and aids in stability of physiological parameters. Thus using nesting for preterm infant is recommended to facilitate infant’s quality of sleep in NICU.

Author(s): Mony K, Vindra Selvam, Krishnakumar Diwakar, Vijaya Raghavan R
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