THE USE OF WATERBEDS FOR VERY-LOW-BIRTH-WEIGHT INFANTS - EFFECTS ON NEUROMOTOR DEVELOPMENT

One hundred and seven infants aged <32 weeks of gestation were stratif ied according to birthweight and randomly assigned to either a waterbe d group (N = 53) or a mattress group (N = 54). All the infants were as sessed on removal from the surface: 68 infants at 40 weeks gestation a nd 52 infants at four, eight, 12 and 18 months adjusted age. At the 18 -month assessment, outcome was classified as normal, suspicious or abn ormal. There were no significant differences between the groups at any age. The results suggest that the use of the waterbed as a positional surface in the neonatal intensive-care unit has no influence on the m otor development of very low-birthweight infants.