When babies are born prematurely, they are thrust into a hospital environment that while highly successful at saving their lives, is not exactly the same as the mother’s womb where ideal development occurs. The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) is equipped with highly skilled care givers and incubators that regulate temperature and humidity, but Amir Lahav, ScD, PhD, director of the Neonatal Research Lab at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) thought that something was missing -- simulation of the maternal sounds that a baby would hear in the womb. Now, new research conducted by Lahav and colleagues links exposure to an audio recording of mom’s heartbeat and her voice to lower incidence of cardiorespiratory events in preterm infants.
