Scott Rivkees
Section of Endocrinology
Department of Pediatrics
Scott.Rivkees@Yale.edu

Research
Although 250,000 preterm infants are reared in artificial environments of hospital nurseries in the United States each year, very little consideration is given to the lighting cycles to which infants are exposed. In neonatal intensive care units, preterm infants are typically exposed to continuous dim lighting without photic time-of-day cues. In the absence of photic entraining signals, the oscillation of the developing circadian clock will drift out of synchrony with the circadian phase of the mother and the external light-dark cycle. This desynchrony may compromise maternal-child interactions, resulting in increased infant irritability and increased newborn energy expenditure. Thus, by synchronizing infant and maternal phase with cycled lighting, it may be possible to improve infant sleep-wake cycles, infant growth, and maternal-child interactions.

We are examining if exposure of preterm infants to cycled lighting during hospitalization synchronizes maternal and infant activity circadian rhythms, resulting in earlier establishment of infant rest-activity cycles, improved parent-infant interactions, and improved neonatal growth.