Visiting less than every day: a marker for later behavioral problems in Finnish preterm infants

To investigate the effect of parental visits during neonatal intensive care on the behavioral and emotional development of the child at school age.

All premature infants born in Tampere University Hospital in Tampere, Finland, in 1989 who were admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit and who lived in the Tampere region (N = 67; 31 boys and 36 girls) formed the study group. Data on parental visits were collected from the hospital records. Child behavior was evaluated according to the Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist at the age of 7 to 8 years. A total of 48 (72%) of the mothers returned the questionnaires.

The median number of visiting days per week was 6.2 for the mothers and 4.7 for the fathers. The children whose mothers visited daily had fewer behavioral and emotional problems at school age than those who had had fewer visits from their mothers (P = .04). The visiting frequency of the fathers was not significantly associated with later behavioral and emotional problems of the child. In this study, infrequent visits by the mother were a stronger risk factor for later psychological development than the medical risks of the preterm infant.

Infrequent visits by mothers to the neonatal intensive care unit seem to be a marker for their children's later behavioral and emotional problems. This emphasizes the significance of early parent-infant contact and the vulnerability in early interaction. Less frequent visits may also indicate factors influencing the parent-child relationship in a way that leads to subsequent behavioral problems.