Sensory Concerns With Preemies

As a parent, it is natural to have developmental concerns about your premature baby. Even though your baby entered this world earlier than expected, she does not necessarily have sensory disabilities. A mother's body discerns preterm delivery and ramps up hormones to increase the development of the baby's major organs. Providing breast milk (even if your baby is too small to latch) and kangaroo care advances baby's physical and psychological growth. Bonding with your preemie and paying close attention to any potential warning signs allows you to intercept sensory development concerns.

Touch

• A fetus's sensitivity to touch develops as early as eight weeks in utero. By 17 weeks every part of the body is sensitive to heat, cold, pressure and pain. A premature baby, newly entering an unfamiliar world, thrives from the skin-to-skin contact with her mother. Kangaroo care, or baby wearing, helps a baby to maintain body temperature, regulates her breathing and sleep, allows closeness with the breast for regular feeding and promotes rapid weight gain. If and when your baby is big enough to exist outside of an incubator, this closeness and touch will accelerate her physical advancement.

Smell

• Prenatal experiences with odorants found in the amniotic fluid prepare a baby's postnatal sense of smell. Products found in the mother's diet while pregnant help to guide a baby towards odors that are appealing and needed for postnatal growth. Babies gravitate towards smells that are sweet and pleasant. In an underdeveloped baby, these smells can be useful tools to prevent sleep apnea and distress. Similar to the healing process of aromatherapy, studies have concluded a reduction of stress and sleep apnea in premature babies who inhaled the sweet scent of vanilla while in an incubator.

Vision

• Crossed eyes are a common occurrence in premature babies. Many times this is not a concern, as it often subsides as your baby grows and develops. However, close attention must be paid to a preemie's vision. Vision problems are among the most common of all of the sensory abnormalities. Retinopathy of prematurity, or ROP, is a condition which causes abnormal growth of the blood vessels in the eye. Mild cases of ROP usually resolve themselves, yet severe cases can cause the retina to detach or partially detach, resulting in vision loss.

Hearing

• As with many of the other preemie sensory concerns, there is an small chance that your baby will suffer from hearing abnormalities. Although there is a tendency for high-frequency hearing loss in preemies, the percentage increase is still low. Duration of ventilation and oxygen treatment may increase her chance of hearing loss. Yet, breast milk provides antibodies to protect the lungs from infections and kangaroo contact regulates breathing. Your best defense against breathing problems, which may render hearing loss, is close contact of mother and child.