The effect of developmental activities, embedded into parent‟s activities of daily living, on supine sleeping infant milestone development

Abstract

Therapeutic intervention should take humans‟ daily routines into account or it is unlikely to be assimilated into everyday practice. This is particularly true for the mothers of young children. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a prone postural control programme, by inserting infant stimulation activities in to the activities of daily living of mothers. 30 mother-infant dyads were randomly assigned at eight weeks postpartum, to an intervention or usual care group. Following a four month period in which the intervention group followed a prone activity programme developed by the researcher, the infants were reassessed. The Peabody Developmental Motor Scales (2nd Ed) were used to evaluate the programme‟s efficacy and the results demonstrate a significant difference (p≤0.00) in the total motor development between the two groups post intervention. Thus a „prone playing‟ programme given to mitigate developmental delay associated with supine sleeping, was successful when embedded into the mother‟s daily routine.