Family Nurture Intervention in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit improves social-relatedness, attention, and neurodevelopment of preterm infants at 18 months in a randomized controlled trial

Background Preterm infants are at high risk for adverse neurodevelopmental and behavioral outcomes. Family Nurture Intervention (FNI) in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) is designed to counteract adverse effects of separation of mothers and their preterm infants. Here, we evaluate effects of FNI on neurobehavioral outcomes. Methods Data were collected at 18 months corrected age from preterm infants. Infants were assigned at birth to FNI or standard care (SC). Bayley Scales of Infant Development III (Bayley‐III) were assessed for 76 infants (SC, n = 31; FNI, n = 45); the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) for 57 infants (SC, n = 31; FNI, n = 26); and the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (M‐CHAT) was obtained for 59 infants (SC, n = 33; FNI, n = 26). Results Family Nurture Intervention significantly improved Bayley‐III cognitive (p = .039) and language (p = .008) scores for infants whose scores were greater than 85. FNI infants had fewer attention problems on the CBCL (p