In a noisy environment, in individual rooms, newborn babies are less exposed to language, which can then lead to speech delays. The team's solution is to encourage parents to talk, sing and read to their babies.
Each baby admitted to the neonatal unit receives a book within 2 or 3 days of admission, and a new book for each "month anniversary" of attendance. A library is also available to parents on the ward. A wide range of titles enables parents to choose the books they like, in collaboration with the hospital's media librarian: books in different languages, with or without text, moving or humorous, etc. A project coordinator visits the department once a week to talk with families.
Parents are also advised on how to read to their baby: skin-to-skin, through the incubator; whether the baby is awake or asleep; for a few minutes a day, in a calm voice. This is a pleasant moment that fosters the parent/child bond and parental involvement in care.
The aim of this project is both to prevent language delays and acquire a broader vocabulary (parents who read a book to their child every day expose their child to 78,000 more words every year - Logan 2019) and to include reading in the baby's routine and then continue it at home, particularly among the most vulnerable families.
The "Lire à mon bébé en néonatologie" (Read to my baby in neonatology) program will be strengthened in a number of ways: the possibility of offering a book during follow-up consultations; enrichment of the library with new foreign-language titles; evaluation of the impact of the approach on language through a nursing & parent questionnaire...
In any case, the parents are very satisfied and are delighted to be able to start these moments of shared pleasure in the service!