The Effects of a Caregiver-initiated Reading Intervention to Their Infant in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of a caregiver‐initiated readingintervention to their infant, in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), on thecaregiver‐infant dyad, both during hospitalization and following discharge. The specificaims are:Aim 1: To evaluate the primary outcome of infant physiological response, including heartrate, respiratory rate, and oxygen saturation, when read by their caregiver. Infant heartrate, respiratory rate and oxygen saturations (SpO2) will be measured 15 minutes prior tothe intervention, at start of the intervention, 2 minutes into the intervention, and 15minutes after the intervention is completed. Outcomes will be compared to those of acontrol group.Aim 2: To explore the secondary outcome of the intervention effect on maternal mentalhealth, as measured by changes in postpartum depression (PPD) scores.