Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author s and the copyright owner s are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Spontaneous movements are a crucial part of early motor development. Healthy term infants may produce up to spontaneous touches to their body and surface in 10 minutes with their hands. It is not known whether the quantity of spontaneous touches differs between very preterm infants and healthy term infants. This study investigates whether the overall quantity of spontaneous touches to body and surface is lower among low-risk very preterm infants compared with healthy term infants.
Spontaneous touches of both hands were coded, assessing number and location of each touch i. This study shows that low-risk very preterm infants, on average, produce fewer spontaneous touches than healthy term infants at three months of corrected age. The present study provides important exploratory evidence for further studies, particularly longitudinal investigations of all dimensions of development.
Keywords: preterm infants, motor development, spontaneous touches, very low birthweight, healthy term infants. The very first movements of a human embryo can be observed as soon as motor neurons form, which is at around six to nine weeks of gestation Prechtl, By moving their extremities and touching the environment surrounding them, embryos and fetuses learn about their own movements, positions and body parts Fagard et al.
The self-touch behavior infants show from birth is the continuation of what fetuses display in utero : a gathering of proprioceptive and haptic information, performed supposedly for gaining sensorimotor experience and learning how and where to guide a touch.
