premature birth
Premature babies whose parents took part in a preventative care program were better behaved and had fewer developmental problems, a study by Melbourne researchers has shown.
Families of 120 babies born at less than 30 weeks took part in the study, with half randomly selected to receive extra care under the program designed by a team from the Murdoch Children's Research Institute and the Royal Women's Hospital.
Psychologists made monthly visits to identify potential problems and worked with parents to help identify stress signals from their babies to prevent problems with behaviour, learning and socialisation.
Physiotherapists were also involved and gave tips including how to position babies for feeding and sleeping, and how to encourage them to start crawling.
The study, published yesterday in the Journal of Pediatrics, showed that the program helped improve the behaviour and social and emotional development of babies, who displayed less aggression and were more attentive and compliant when assessed at two years compared to babies not in the program.
The program also reduced anxiety and depression in primary caregivers, which psychologist Dr Peter Anderson said could also impact on the babies' development.
Professor Lex Doyle, of the Royal Women's Hospital, said babies born prematurely had higher rates of long-term problems with development and behaviour.
''As more of these tiny and very premature babies are surviving, we need more strategies to combat these problems. Giving families skills to use in the home is one strategy that looks very promising,'' he said.
Simone Saunders participated in the program with her son Noah, 4, who was born at 29 weeks, and said it helped her recognise when he was becoming stressed and work out strategies to get him crawling.
''He's slightly delayed physically, but mentally he is well ahead, he's very switched on,'' she said.
''The physiotherapist gave us lots of tips and now we're just trying to keep him moving, to challenge him physically.''
Ms Saunders said it was reassuring to have some guidance after Noah's precarious start to life, which included being on life support for the first three weeks.
Dr Anderson said there was a lack of resources for families of premature babies and that many felt unsupported in dealing with issues that could have long-term consequences.
He said researchers would use the study results to develop an online assessment tool for parents to identify problems for practitioners to follow up. The aim is to expand the program to more families, including those in country areas.
About 24,000 babies are born prematurely each year in Australia, accounting for 8 per cent of births. Of these, about 3000 are born at less than 30 weeks, which is classified as very premature.
