Study: Mother's voice stimulates premature babies' brain development

A new study from Stanford University shows that the sound of a mother's voice can boost the brain development of babies who are born prematurely. The study findings were published October 13 in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.

Key Takeaways:

• Researchers exposed premature infants to audio recordings of their mother's voices.

• The study showed that infants exposed to the audio displayed more brain development than infants who did not listen to the audio, particularly in the region of the brain responsible for language processing.

• Doctors and researchers are continuing to find ways to help even the smallest premature infants live to their full potential.

The Details:

Stanford researchers followed 46 infants born more than eight weeks prematurely, with participants ranging from 24 to 31 weeks gestation.

Mothers of these children each recorded themselves reading the Paddington Bear story. The 10-minute audio was then played twice an hour for eight hours for the infants in the treatment group, resulting in an additional two hours and 40 minutes per day of hearing the mothers' voices.

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A news release outlining the study explained the importance of preemies hearing this maternal speech, noting:

During hospitalization, they hear less maternal speech than if they had continued to develop in utero. Parents can’t usually stay at the hospital around the clock; they may have older children to care for or jobs they must return to, for example.

Preemies are at risk for language delays, and scientists have suspected that reduced early-life exposure to the sounds of speech contributes to the problem.

MRI scans revealed that within a few short weeks, infants who were exposed to the audio recordings showed signs of brain development. Specifically, white matter in the left arcuate fasciculus — the area of the brain for language processing — was more mature.

Comparatively, infants in the control group who did not receive the audio recordings did not demonstrate the same level of brain development.

Lead researchers say that the study boasts promising results for infant language and brain development.

"It’s powerful that something fairly small seems to make a big difference,” noted Melissa Scala, MD, a clinical professor of pediatrics and a neonatologist at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford (ironically, the project of a woman whose foundation has become one of the largest funders of abortion worldwide).

“I was surprised by how strong the effect was,” added Katherine Travis, PhD. “That we can detect differences in brain development this early suggests what we’re doing in the hospital matters. Speech exposure matters for brain development.”

The Bottom Line:

The study's results demonstrate the importance of a mother to her child's development. Doctors and researchers continue to find ways to help extremely premature infants develop into thriving children and adults.