Auditory arousal thresholds are higher when infants sleep in the prone position

Objective: To evaluate the possibility that infants sleeping in the prone position have higher arousal thresholds to auditory challenges than when sleeping in the supine position. Study design: Polygraphic recordings were performed for 1 night in 25 healthy infants with a median age of 9 weeks. The...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of pediatrics 1998-02, Vol.132 (2), p.240-243
Main Authors: Franco, Patricia, Pardou, Anne, Hassid, Sergia, Lurquin, Paul, Groswasser, José, Kahn, André
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anesthesia. Intensive care medicine. Transfusions. Cell therapy and gene therapy
Auditory Threshold - physiology
Biological and medical sciences
Emergency and intensive care: neonates and children. Prematurity. Sudden death
Female
Humans
Infant
Infant, Newborn
Intensive care medicine
Male
Medical sciences
Prone Position - physiology
Sleep
Wakefulness - physiology
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Objective: To evaluate the possibility that infants sleeping in the prone position have higher arousal thresholds to auditory challenges than when sleeping in the supine position. Study design: Polygraphic recordings were performed for 1 night in 25 healthy infants with a median age of 9 weeks. The infants were exposed to white noises of increasing intensities while sleeping successively in the prone and supine positions, or vice versa. Arousal thresholds were defined by the auditory stimuli needed to induce polygraphic arousals. Results: Three infants were excluded from the study because they awoke while their position was being changed. For the 22 infants included in the analysis, more intense auditory stimuli were needed to arouse the infants in the prone position than those in the supine body position ( p = 0.011). Arousal thresholds were higher in the prone than in the supine position in 15 infants; unchanged in 4 infants; and lower in the prone position in 3 infants ( p = 0.007). Conclusions: Infants show higher arousal thresholds to auditory challenges when sleeping in the prone position than when sleeping in the supine position. The finding could be relevant to mechanisms concerned with the reported association between sudden deaths and the prone sleeping position in infants. (J Pediatr 1998;132:240-3).
ISSN:0022-3476
1097-6833
DOI:10.1016/S0022-3476(98)70438-X