FACIAL SOMATOSENSATION: Babies use this sense of touch to attach themselves to their mother's breast.

 This study by a team of neurologists and pediatricians from University College London explains why and how the brain of a newborn baby reacts to face touch: babies use this sense of touch to find and attach to their mother's breast. The purpose of this ability, normally present from birth, explains why premature babies often have difficulty feeding: the underdevelopment in these children of this facial sensitivity could be the main cause.

 

The UCL researchers and their colleagues from Imperial College London, UCLH (University College London Hospitals) and Universitá Campus Bio-Medico di Roma have developed a new method to study this sense of touch in babies and how their brains react using electroencephalography (EEG). The device is based on a transducer, worn on the fingertip and covered with a clinical glove. The baby can be tapped lightly on the cheek, and then brain responses are measured against the force of the touch. It is therefore a new stimulating device, safe to use on the delicate face of babies and acceptable to their parents, which makes it possible to measure the effects of a “natural” finger on the skin.

 

Facial somatosensation is necessary for breastfeeding , this is the most immediate conclusion of this study conducted on 7 babies aged on average 7 days and born prematurely in the departments of UCLH. The study shows that at a time when babies' brains are developing faster than at any other time in life, facial contact analysis allows babies to find or recognize their mother's breast, and turn head to the right in order to feed. Beyond this understanding, this technique of measuring brain responses to face touch is important for understanding broader brain development in newborns.

 

Prematurity and processing of sensory data: Next, the technique makes it possible to better understand how premature babies process sensory information: with this device, the team has in fact succeeded in studying how infants process tactile information received by contact with the face, how this processing of sensory data changes with the age of the child and how and in what cases disruption of this process can lead to long-term feeding problems.