Effectiveness of Vestibular Stimulation on Weight Gain in Preterm Infants

Abstract

Premature infants undergo a lot of stressful procedures during care and treatment procedure, which may lead to weight changes. Vestibular stimulation is an intervention designed to improve the developmental and physiological outcomes of preterm infants admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of vestibular stimuli on weight gain in preterm infants admitted to the NICU. Quasi experimental study design was used in this study; Total 10 Preterm infants admitted to the NICU who met the inclusion criteria were selected. All 10 preterm infants under went weight monitoring as a pre-test measurement. The intervention method was a vestibular stimulation program which was performed by the researcher for 30 minutes twice daily for 2 weeks. End of 1^st week and second week weight measurement was taken as a post test intervention.  All the data’s were tabulated and statistically analyzed. Post intervention weight gain was significant in the group compared to the pre-intervention (p ˂ 0.005). This indicates that the vestibular intervention improves weight gain in premature infants. Since premature infants are usually hospitalized in the NICU for a long time due to their low weight and poor physical condition. Hence, considering its positive outcomes, besides specialized care, this effective and very low cost method could be used by physiotherapist to promote weight gain and early discharge of preterm infants.