Long-Term Benefits of Cuddling Preemie Babies

by Apr 7, 2014Books and Resources, Special Needs Parenting2 comments

The benefits of cuddling preemie babies is discussed in this post and in a recent research report. They are pretty astounding.

 Photo Credit: David Castillo Dominici at www.freedigitalphotos.net

A new study proves that cuddling preemie babies produces long-term benefits. The study falls into the category of “things parents already know,” as did the study that proved caregivers raising kids with special needs experience stress featured on Different Dream not too long ago.

Long-Term Study about Cuddling Preemie Babies

An article on the Time website describes the study Ruth Feldman began in 1996, before the benefits of kangaroo care (KC) in NICU were well understood. According to the article,

Feldman assembled two sample groups of 73 preemie babies each at two different Israeli hospitals. One group got standard treatment, which meant no KC; at the other, the mothers would hold their preemies for one hour per day for 14 days…Then they followed all the babies, examining them when they were 3, 6, 12 and 24 months old, and again when they were 5 and 10 years old.

Benefits of Cuddling Preemie Babies

Feldman and her team discovered several ways the KC group outperformed the other group:

  • As babies, their sleep patterns were more organized or predictable.
  • The babies had steadier respiration and heart rates.
  • As babies, they were better able to direct their gaze and actions toward a goal.
  • The above benefits were in evidence a decade later.
  • As 10-year-olds, those who had gotten KC were better at stress management.

Other Interesting Tidbits

Two other tidbits from the study deserve mention. First, Feldman hopes to follow her sample group at least until they turn 17. Then she wants to scan their brains to see if lasting effects of the cuddling can still be detected. Second, it only took 14 total hours of KC over 14 days–to produce lasting and profound effects. To learn why Feldman thinks a little cuddling accomplishes so much, check out the entire article, How Cuddling Saves Tiny Babies. Finally, though the subjects of the study were preemies, every baby needs to be cuddled, too.

Did You Cuddle Your Preemie?

Was your baby in NICU? Were you encouraged to cuddle your baby? Leave a comment about how you think affected your little one. I’ll start. KC wasn’t on the radar screen when our newborn was in NICU in 1982. But instinctively, my husband spent hours and hours beside the isolette rubbing our son’s tiny cheek. Into his teen years, whenever our boy was stressed, he would say, “Mom, Dad, would you rub my cheek?”

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By Jolene

Jolene Philo is the author of the Different Dream series for parents of kids with special needs. She speaks at parenting and special needs conferences around the country. She’s also the creator and host of the Different Dream website. Sharing Love Abundantly With Special Needs Families: The 5 Love Languages® for Parents Raising Children with Disabilities, which she co-authored with Dr. Gary Chapman, was released in August of 2019 and is available at local bookstores, their bookstore website, and at Amazon.

2 Comments

  1. Jolene

    Jennifer,

    Thanks for sharing your story and for using your experience to inform and support families. How wonderful to hear Joy is doing well.

    Jolene

  2. Jennifer Degl

    I used kangaroo care as much as possible with my preemie and then held her as much as possible when she could be held. My daughter Joy was born at 23 weeks last year. Due to modern medicine and prayers she is doing great today. I hemorrhaged at 17 weeks for the first of 4 times because of 100% placenta previa, which turned into placenta accreta (which I believe was caused by 3 prior c-sections). After she came home from 121 days in the NICU, I wrote a memoir called “From Hope To Joy” about my life-threatening
 pregnancy and my daughter’s 4 months in the NICU (with my 3 young sons at 
home), which is now available on both the Amazon and Barnes&Noble websites. It was quite a roller 
coaster that I am certain some of you have been on or are currently riding on. My mission is to provide hope to women struggling with
 high-risk pregnancies, encourage expectant mothers to educate themselves before 
electing cesarean deliveries, provide families of premature babies a realistic 
look at what lies ahead in their NICU journey, and show that miracles can 
happen, and hope can turn into joy.
 Please see my website http://www.micropreemie.net and http://www.facebook.com/jenniferdegl and watch our amazing video of my daughter’s miracle birth and life at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_hleySg-iU
    
Thank you.

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Meet Jolene

Jolene Philo is a published author, speaker, wife, and mother of a son with special needs.

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