Promoting early physical closeness between parents and their preterm newborns supports physiological stress regulation: A systematic review

Preterm birth constitutes one of the major adverse events in human development. Preterm infants are hospitalized in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) where they are exposed to life-saving yet pain-inducing procedures and to protective care. Correspondingly, interest in interventions to reduce pain and stress in NICU’s has increased. In recent years, researchers have begun to explore ways to involve parents to provide comfort to infants during painful procedures as they have seen the loss of parental role as their infants undergo painful procedures in the intensive care setting.The presented review focused on the literature on the physiological, behavioral and pain-related effects of physical contact in the NICU with their preterm infants.Literature search occurred on one database (PubMed) and 13 records were selected. Evidence shows that maternal contact can facilitate not only a diminished response to pain, but a quicker recovery in infants between 28 and 32 weeks gestational age. Also different strategies such as family nurture interventions (FNI) resulted in enhanced autonomic regulation. These findings suggests that facilitating early nurturing interactions and emotional connection between preterm infants and their parents is an effective means of optimizing postnatal development in preterm infants. Open questions and methodological aspects are discussed to guide future developmental research in preterm infants and their co-regulation with their parents during the NICU stay.