Effect of positioning on physiological parameters on low birth weight preterm babies in neonatal intensive care unit

Abstract

Preterm infants are babies who are delivered before the completion of 37 weeks gestation period. They are born with immature functioning of the brain. In Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), these infants receives many environmental stimuli, and their comfort will be disturbed. These various sensory stimulus received in NICU influence the functional and neurodevelopmental outcome of these infants and also their quality of life. So this study was intended to evaluate the axillary temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate and oxygen saturation level of these infants prior to nesting and after nesting at the 60th minute. Forty preterm infants who fulfilled the criteria of selection were included in the study by simple random sampling and segregated into case and control groups by blocked randomization. Data was collected and recorded. The temperature was recorded by a digital thermometer, respiratory rate was counted by the number of times the infants’ chest rises, heart rate and oxygen saturation readings from the pulse oximeter. The result of the study showed that there was statistically significant effect of nesting at 60th minute, temperature (t=5.03966,p<0.05), respiratory rate(t= -2.13,p<0.05) and heart rate (t=-2.59766,p<0.05). But the effect was not significant on oxygen saturation level (t=1.2,p=0.238). Hence this study result supports the use of nesting in NICU.