The Effect of Facilitated Fetal Tucking and Free Posture on Sleep among Premature Infants Hospitalized: A Randomized Cross-over Clinical Trial

Abstract

Abstract: Introduction: The full maturation of the central nervous system in premature infants directly depends on the organization of sleep and wakefulness states. Thus, improves sleep in these infants is very important. The main objective of this study is to analyze and also compare the sleep quantity of premature infants in facilitated fetal tucking and free body posture. Methods: This cross-over clinical trial which was carried out in Neonatal ward of Al-Zahra Teaching Hospital affiliated to the Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Iran, 2015. Thirty two premature infants with the age range of 33-36 weeks were selected for the study. Every infant was studied for 4 days with a 12-hour period each day. Each infant was randomly put in one of the four states, namely free body posture in supine position, free body posture in lateral position, Facilitated fetal tucking in supine position and Facilitated fetal tucking in lateral position in the mentioned period. Films of the faces and body condition infant were recorded in the 12-hour period (8am to 8pm). SPSS Software (ver13) was used for data analysis. Results: The results of the current study showed that there is a significant difference between the sleep duration, wakefulness duration and crying duration of the infants in Facilitated fetal tucking groups and free body posture groups (p>0.05). Moreover, sleep duration of the infants in lateral position is longer than the infants in supine position and crying duration of the infants in lateral position is less than the infants in supine position (p>0.05). For the duration sleep, wakefulness duration and crying duration variable, there was no a significant interaction between the posture and position (p<0.05). Conclusions: It is concluded that the facilitated fetal tucking increased sleep duration and decreased wake duration and crying duration. Also, the "lateral position" increase duration of sleep and decreased crying duration .