UNASSIGNED: To study the effects of playing mother\'s recorded voice to preterm infants in the NICU on their mothers\' mental health as measured by the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale -21 (DASS-21) questionnaire.
UNASSIGNED: This was a pilot single center prospective randomized controlled trial done at a level IV NICU. The trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov (NCT04559620). Inclusion criteria were mothers of preterm infants with gestational ages between 26wks and 30 weeks. DASS-21 questionnaire was administered to all the enrolled mothers in the first week after birth followed by recording of their voice by the music therapists. In the interventional group, recorded maternal voice was played into the infant incubator between 15 and 21 days of life. A second DASS-21 was administered between 21 and 23 days of life. The Wilcoxon rank-sum test was used to compare DASS-21 scores between the two groups and Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to compare the pre- and post-intervention DASS-21 scores.
UNASSIGNED: Forty eligible mothers were randomized: 20 to the intervention group and 20 to the control group. The baseline maternal and neonatal characteristics were similar between the two groups. There was no significant difference in the DASS-21 scores between the two groups at baseline or after the study intervention. There was no difference in the pre- and post-interventional DASS-21 scores or its individual components in the experimental group. There was a significant decrease in the total DASS-21 score and the anxiety component of DASS-21 between weeks 1 and 4 in the control group.
UNASSIGNED: In this pilot randomized control study, recorded maternal voice played into preterm infant\'s incubator did not have any effect on maternal mental health as measured by the DASS-21 questionnaire. Data obtained in this pilot study are useful in future RCTs (Randomized Controlled Trial) to address this important issue.

To understand the consequences of prematurity on language perception, it is fundamental to determine how atypical early sensory experience affects brain development. At term equivalent age, ten preterm and ten full-term newborns underwent high-density EEG during mother or stranger speech presentation, in the forward or backward order. A general group effect terms > preterms is evident in the theta frequency band, in the left temporal area, with preterms showing significant activation for strangers\' and terms for the mother\'s voice. A significant group contrast in the low and high theta in the right temporal regions indicates higher activations for the stranger\'s voice in preterms. Finally, only full terms presented a late gamma band increase for the maternal voice, indicating a more mature brain response. EEG time-frequency analysis demonstrate that preterm infants are selectively responsive to stranger voices in both temporal hemispheres, and that they lack selective brain responses to their mother\'s forward voice.

Infants with critical congenital heart defects (CCHD) are at high risk for feeding challenges and neurodevelopmental delays; however, few interventions promoting the neurodevelopmental progression of feeding have been studied with this population. Contingent mother\'s voice has been successfully used as positive reinforcement for non-nutritive suck (NNS) in studies with preterm infants, leading to improved weight gain and more rapid cessation of tube feedings; however, this type of intervention has not been studied in infants with CCHD. This study aimed to determine whether an NNS-training protocol using the mother\'s voice as positive reinforcement and validated in preterm infants could improve oral feeding outcomes in hospitalized infants with CCHD undergoing cardiac surgical procedures. Infants were randomized to receive the contingent mother\'s voice intervention before or after cardiac surgery, with a control comparison group receiving passive exposure to the mother\'s voice after surgery. There were no significant differences in discharge weight, PO intake, length of stay, time to full feeds, or feeding status at 1-month post-discharge between infants who received contingent mother\'s voice compared to those who did not. There were significant differences in PO intake and time to full feeds following surgery based on infants\' pre-enrollment PO status and severity of illness. At 1-month post-discharge, parents of infants in the intervention group expressed a higher rate of positive feelings and fewer concerns regarding their infant\'s feeding compared to parents of infants in the control group. While the current protocol of 5 sessions was not associated with improved feeding outcomes in infants with CCHD, it empowered parents to contribute to their infant\'s care and demonstrated the feasibility of using the mother\'s voice as positive reinforcement for infants with CCHD. Further study of timing, intensity, and duration of interventions leveraging the mother\'s voice in this population is needed. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03035552.

An infant\'s early contact with music affects its future development in a broad sense, including the development of musical aptitude. Contact with the mother\'s voice, both prenatally and after birth, is also extremely important for creating an emotional bond between the infant and the mother. This article discusses the role that auditory experience-both typically musical and that associated with the mother\'s voice-plays in fetal, neonatal, and infant development, particularly in terms of musical aptitude. Attempts have also been made to elucidate the neuropsychological mechanisms underlying the positive effects that appropriate musical stimulation can have on a child\'s development.

OBJECTIVE: This study investigated the effects of three auditory interventions; white noise, recorded mother\'s voice, and MiniMuffs, applied during a heel lance on pain and comfort in premature infants in the neonatal intensive care units.
METHODS: This experimental, parallel, randomised controlled research was conducted in a state hospital tertiary-level neonatal intensive care unit. The sample comprised sixty-four premature infants with gestational ages of 31-36 weeks. The infants were randomly assigned to four groups: i) white noise, ii) recorded mother\'s voice, iii) MiniMuffs, and iv) control. Pain and comfort of newborns were evaluated according to the Neonatal Infant Pain Scale (NIPS) and the COMFORTneo scale. Oxygen saturation, heart rate, and crying time were also measured.
RESULTS: The mean of oxygen saturation levels in the white noise, recorded mother\'s voice, and MiniMuffs group were higher than the control group. The heart rate, crying time, mean NIPS score, COMFORTneo score of the premature neonates in the white noise, recorded mother\'s voice, and MiniMuffs groups were significantly lower than the control group (p < .001).
CONCLUSIONS: Auditory interventions used during heel lance reduce the pain and increase the comfort of the premature infants. White noise is extremely effective in preventing infants\'s pain.

Emergence delirium is a behavioral disturbance after general anesthesia in children and may distress both the patients and the primary caregivers, such as parents and medical staff, looking after the patients. Various medical and emotional interventions have been investigated to reduce emergence delirium; however, none are completely effective. This trial intends to assess whether the mother\'s recorded voice can reduce this adverse post-anesthesia event and facilitate arousal from general anesthesia.
This is a prospective, double-blind, single-center, parallel-arm, superiority, randomized controlled trial to be conducted in participants aged 2-8 years who are undergoing elective surgery requiring general anesthesia. Participants will be randomly assigned to one of two groups: those who are stimulated to wake up by listening to their mother\'s recorded voice (maternal group, n = 33) or a stranger\'s voice (stranger group, n = 33) during anesthetic emergence. The primary outcome is the initial emergence delirium score in the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU). The secondary outcomes are hemodynamic parameters, including heart rate and mean blood pressure, the duration of time between the cessation of anesthetics and a BIS level of 60, 70 and 80, eye-opening or purposeful movement time, extubation time, total consumption of analgesics, PACU stay time, emergence delirium and pain scores during the PACU stay.
This is the first randomized controlled trial to investigate the effect of a mother\'s recorded voice during emergence on the pediatric emergence profile after general anesthesia. It may provide prophylactic treatment options to decrease emergence delirium and enhance arousal from general anesthesia.
ClicnicalTrials.gov, ID: NCT02955680 . Registered on 2 November 2016.

Brain development is largely shaped by early sensory experience. However, it is currently unknown whether, how early, and to what extent the newborn\'s brain is shaped by exposure to maternal sounds when the brain is most sensitive to early life programming. The present study examined this question in 40 infants born extremely prematurely (between 25- and 32-wk gestation) in the first month of life. Newborns were randomized to receive auditory enrichment in the form of audio recordings of maternal sounds (including their mother\'s voice and heartbeat) or routine exposure to hospital environmental noise. The groups were otherwise medically and demographically comparable. Cranial ultrasonography measurements were obtained at 30 ± 3 d of life. Results show that newborns exposed to maternal sounds had a significantly larger auditory cortex (AC) bilaterally compared with control newborns receiving standard care. The magnitude of the right and left AC thickness was significantly correlated with gestational age but not with the duration of sound exposure. Measurements of head circumference and the widths of the frontal horn (FH) and the corpus callosum (CC) were not significantly different between the two groups. This study provides evidence for experience-dependent plasticity in the primary AC before the brain has reached full-term maturation. Our results demonstrate that despite the immaturity of the auditory pathways, the AC is more adaptive to maternal sounds than environmental noise. Further studies are needed to better understand the neural processes underlying this early brain plasticity and its functional implications for future hearing and language development.