Multisensory Stimulation for Preterm Infants: Effects on Growth and Development

Early Weight Gain Boosted by Multi-Sense Care

Providing positive sensory experiences while the brain grows rapidly during the newborn period could theoretically support memory, emotional regulation, and early learning.

Activating Senses During Rapid Brain Growth

Multisensory stimulation activates two or more senses simultaneously.

Hearing is engaged through a parent’s voice, singing, or calming music, while touch involves massage or passive movements. Smell and taste are stimulated via a mother’s scent or breast milk, balance is addressed through gentle rocking or position changes, and sight utilizes soft, cycled lighting alongside simple shapes, colors, or moving patterns.

Tracking Survival, Growth, and Long-Term Development

The review examined whether multisensory stimulation compared against standard care or single-sense interventions helps premature infants survive, grow, and develop.

Investigators specifically tracked whether the interventions reduced major developmental problems at 18 to 24 months of age—such as cerebral palsy, developmental delays, limited mental abilities, blindness, or deafness—or lowered newborn mortality before hospital discharge. Other monitored health measures included overall length of hospital stay, time spent in the neonatal intensive care unit, days requiring breathing support, and the duration needed to achieve full oral feeding.

To evaluate these outcomes, researchers analyzed 19 studies encompassing a total of 1,544 premature babies. Eighteen of those investigations compared multisensory stimulation directly with standard care, while a single study evaluated the approach against a touch-only single-sense intervention. Ten studies primarily focused on brain and behavioral development, whereas the remaining nine concentrated on weight gain metrics, length of hospital stay, or respiratory support duration. An additional 13 ongoing studies and four unassessed studies were identified for potential future analysis.

Small Clinical Effects and Trial Limitations

Regarding key developmental outcomes, none of the studies comparing multisensory stimulation to standard care reported on major developmental disabilities at 18 to 24 months corrected age. Only one small study assessed cerebral palsy rates at 12 months, leaving evidence on this risk highly uncertain. Furthermore, data from one large study indicated that multisensory stimulation may result in little to no difference in death rates before hospital discharge.

While the evidence suggests multisensory stimulation may increase total weight gain prior to discharge, the observed effect is small and its clinical significance remains unclear. When evaluated against touch-only single-sense stimulation, researchers could not determine whether multisensory approaches better increase weight gain during the intervention period. The sole study comparing multi-sensory to single-sensory interventions did not report critical outcomes like major developmental problems, mortality, or total weight gain prior to discharge.

Authors of the review expressed limited confidence in these conclusions because many evaluated studies were small or lacked robust design. Several trials failed to report targeted outcomes or omitted sufficient data for comprehensive analysis, meaning the true clinical effects of multisensory stimulation could differ from current observations.