Sleep Patterns

When providing a healthy and safe environment both inside and outside the nursery, there are factors myself and other practitioners need to consider; individual children and any specific needs they may have, for example at my work place we a baby with Prader-Willi syndrome, a rare genetic condition that causes restricted growth, poor core muscle strength, learning difficulties, behavioural problems such as temper tantrums or stubbornness and a permanent feeling of hunger which will start between the age of 2 and 8 years old. The practitioners who work with the baby must always consider

There are more than 70% of premature babies that are born between 34 and 36 weeks gestation a year. When a baby is born early, or born with birth defects, the Neonatal Intensive Care unit is its first home. The nurse’s in the NICU have the difficult job of preparing baby’s and parents for a health life together. A baby who has been put into the NICU will stay there until it is healthy enough to go home.

In 1997, anthropologist James Mckenna and his colleagues conducted a study in a sleep laboratory at the University of California's Irvine School of Medicine. The study was to observed thirty-five nursing mother- infant pair sleeping together as well as apart for three consecutive nights. The infants were between eleven to fifteen weeks old. Twenty of the infants had been co sleeping since birth and the other fifteen had been independent sleepers. To observe they used many tools such as polygraph to record mother and infants heart rate, breathing rhythms, body temperature, the nursing cycles and even monitored their brain waves all of this along with watching their test subjects simultaneously on an infrared video monitor. What they found was quite unique, the infant and mother were highly responsive to each other and their movements. The infant and mother changed position of sleeping to face each other. They wake more frequently to nurse, and about twice as much as an independent sleeper and nurse three times longer but still get more sleep co sleeping than independent sleepers,

Infant co-sleeping is a highly controversial topic of debate in our society. There are many valid reasons as to why infant co-sleeping is an appropriate practice based upon many different things, some to include research, culture and personal opinion. And there are just as many reasons to recede that claim and support that co-sleeping is detrimental to the health and well-being of an infant. Before the following research, as outlined in this paper, my personal opinion was based on the fact that I practiced co-sleeping with my son many years ago, back when co-sleeping was not such an issue. I felt comfortable with co-sleeping and supported co-sleeping. The reasoning behind this could have been the age factor as a teen mother, my cultural beliefs and also the comfort of knowing my child was close and I could access him easily if needed. As I learned more about co-sleeping and began my work in the field of ECE, I was encouraged to support the “Back to Sleep” movement and to share the cons of co-sleeping with the families I worked with based upon the beliefs of my employer. The following articles will highlight the many pros and cons of infant co-sleeping

Dr. James McKenna of Notre Dame University’s Mother Baby Sleep Laboratory said “the bodies of women and their babies are more in sync when they sleep together, which helps the baby sleep better. Babies are designed to feel the presence of their parents. It is only a very recent and very strange cultural innovation that babies would be sleeping apart from their mothers. It is very much a departure from the normal human pattern.” (McKenna, et al., 1994)

New born babies can spend up to 50% of their day sleeping, doctors believe that it provides the brain with a work out that offers much stimulation to infants. This sleep time is crucial for a proper brain development. It also provides the body with much needed relaxation and recuperation. Research shows that having shorter sleep durations can be associated with lower cognitive performance, hyperactivity-impulsivity, and impaired neurological development.

Everyone, at some point in life, has experienced the terror of waking up from a disconcerting dream and longing for the comfort that only a mother can provide. Imagine there is an infant, new to the world and confused about everything around him, and how this child must feel when awakening with this uneasy feeling. Who knows how long it could take for the child’s mother to wake and come to his aid and how long that will feel to the newborn. Now imagine that the baby is right next to his mother, and just as he begins to stir, this warm familiar hand brings solace and familiarity with just a slight touch, quieting the child before there is any disturbance. This situation is one of the many positive ways that co-sleeping can affect a family. Co-sleeping is a hypernym of sleeping arrangements defined by Wendy Goldberg as “the presence of a caregiver who sleeps within close enough proximity of the infant to permit the exchange of at least two sensory stimuli” (par. 8). Goldberg is a psychology professor at the University of California, with specializations in infant sleep and transition into parenthood, among other things. While the medical community is at odds on the topic of co-sleeping, both sides acknowledge the risks and benefits of the other; however, the belief that co-sleeping is the superior arrangement for both baby and parent definitely has more corroborative evidence than the inadequate data used in advocating for solitary sleeping.

Infant learning and brain development is fragile and contingent upon numerous intrinsic and extrinsic factors. The most critical time frame for infant brain development is from the second trimester to the first three months of life (Marshall, 2011). During this time, neural pathways are forming, areas of the brain are maturing, and brain development is rapid. From infancy until the age of 3 years, neural pathways are still being formed in response to stimulation and for this reason, it is extremely important for caregivers and parents to be aware of the many factors that can influence brain development in infants (Marshall, 2011).

By exploring sources that address the topic of premature infants and music therapy, the author of this paper discusses about the effect of music on specific common issue that the NICU can cause to premature infants. The effect of music therapy on stabilizing premature infants’ breathing and heart rate is addressed. The author also points out that music can be a stimulus for premature infants to learning life-matter skill such as the sucking behavior.

It is common consensus that the levels of light and noise in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) ward has always been and presently unacceptable, although historically there has been ongoing debate about the exact level and type of impact this environment has on preterm infants in terms of their sleep patterns and neuropsychological development. There has been some support by substantial research that has previously found stimulation in the NICU has a detrimental effect on the development, growth and quality of sleep of infants. Long-term implications have also been found to have a negative effect on the motor and neurological functioning of preterm infants. However, other studies argue that they had found no significant effects

Many results of bed rest have proven to have a physiological effect on women during their pregnancies. A few stories even proving that bed rest has a toll on a person mentally. Such as,

Patient’s in the NICU are considered to be very tiny and fragile and immunocompromised due to their immature organ systems which can lead to many dangerous medical problems. Patricia W. Stone states “maintaining a safe environment reflects a level of compassion and vigilance for patient welfare that is as important as any other aspect of competent health care” (Stone, 2008). The patient’s safety should always be a top concerned for a nurse because in a health care facility the purpose is to heal the patient and get them on the road to recovery. Nurses must learn from the errors of the past and use their knowledge to improve the quality of nursing to the patients to ensure if errors do happen again that the use of evidence-based practices are put into place to improve their outcomes. According to Higher Quality of Care and Patient Safety, “Registered Nurses (RNs) are instrumental in achieving multiple care goals, including promoting infant health and clinical stability, maintaining the integrity and cleanliness of central catheters, and preparing families for their role in infant care and successful transition it home” (Lake, 2016). Nurses are reasonable for the education of the families of the patients to ensure that the best quality of care for the patient is maintained outside the hospital to ensure the best medical outcome for the infants.

Education plays an important role when it comes to caring for a new baby, and that includes safe sleep. One of the most common short comings in this area is

If you have a roommate that comes back to your room at all hours of the night, this can severely affect your life as a whole. Sleep is essential to the human body performing in a variety of tasks. If you are constantly being woken up at various times throughout the night, it can have negative consequences on your impact to learn and your health. So what does a typical night’s sleep schedule look like?

(-- removed HTML --) Dimming the lights in the room. Newborns are sensitive to light, and bright lights will