nicu nursing and white noise

[samschwinn]

in the nicu one of the chart prompts for consoling an infant is to use white noise, (shooshing). in the mothers womb it is said to be a very noisy environment, i was wondering if there are any nicu units who play loud white noise and whether it was effective at consoling the nicu babies and if it was good at decreasing their bieng stimulated by all of the alarms

[Adenium]

Not that this is necessarily valid, but your post caught my eye because I was recently reading a book called The Brain that Changes Itself by a Dr. Doidge. It discusses neuroplasticity and each chapter explores a different case or subject area, and one brought up a theory relating autism spectrum disorders to early white noise exposure. Evidently this stemmed from several studies looking at lowered IQ and poor general development based on proximity to major noise sources, such as the lower floors of an apartment building near train tracks, or the distance a home was from a large busy airport.

I got this book from the library and so don't have it in front of me, but the main idea was that the constant general stimulation is in fact overstimulating, and interrupts the natural physiological processes of differentiation in the brain. For neural tissue to differentiate properly, the brain needs exposure to various distinct stimuli at different times.

There are, of course, many many theories about autism and psychological/social disorders in general - and maybe white noise in the NICU is good in relation to the alternative noisy environment. Just thought I'd mention this as I just came across it and found it interesting.