2024-03-14 05:30:00
In the United States, more and more neonatology departments are implementing reading programs for premature babies and their parents. Their names: “Goslings”, “Babies with Books”, “Reach Out and Read”, “Little Readers”, “Bookworm”…
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French initiatives are rarer, but are developing in their turn. At the Nantes university hospital center, for example, a small library of albums is available to parents of premature babies. In Amiens, it is the liaison psychiatrists who come to read stories to babies. Elsewhere, volunteers or association employees take turns. In Tours, a small group bringing together librarians, employed readers and researchers comes every week to share stories in the service.
The idea may seem absurd at first, to parents and caregivers alike: why read stories to babies that they are far too young to understand? However, the implementation of these programs is based on rational motivations. They are based on the importance of so-called “developmental” care, which covers everything which, within these highly technical services, does not primarily serve to help the child survive, but engages him in his further development. .
Making the baby hear the voice of his parents in a medical world
A baby who is born very early may have to spend long weeks in a hospital ward in which noise, light, excess or lack of stimulation can hamper his development. Hence, the risk that he will manifest difficulties directly linked to his hospitalization conditions.
To prevent these problems, developmental care focuses on its entire environment: its position in its incubator, its sensory environment (light, sounds), its emotional support. Extremely rigorous studies have shown that the presence of parents is beneficial to the baby’s development, and that everything must be done to encourage this presence.
By discovering the effect of noise pollution on premature babies, we also became aware of the support that music might provide, especially if it is sung by the parents. In doing so, it is the fundamental importance of the voice of the parents, and in particular the mother, which interested the researchers: parents are now strongly encouraged to speak and sing to their baby. It was in this context that the first expressions of interest in reading in neonatology appeared: the medium of books appeared to be a natural vector for the parents’ voice.
Reading programs introduce “ordinary” childcare objects which usually have little place there into the very technical environment of neonatology departments. For parents, the arrival of colorful or tender albums in a room dominated by control screens and life support devices is a call to the world of childhood and not to medicine.
These multicolored books remind us that the baby will come out of his incubator, that he will be a being with whom interactions will be pleasant. The presence of albums helps parents to plan ahead, while anxiety regarding the baby’s health from day to day produces a shock that stops time.
Establish an exchange through the musicality of the texts and the colors of the albums
Furthermore, reading aloud, offered to babies during their brief moments of calm awakening, supports parents in building their bond with their child. The musicality of the texts calls on one’s hearing skills: the rhythm of a nursery rhyme, the variation in intensity of the voice reading contrasts with the poor sound environment of the neonatal unit, and it is not uncommon that at this listen, the baby opens one eye, stops a movement, turns his head. The parents marvel: “He hears!” “, ” he reacts ! »
Premature babies have a visual perception that has yet to be perfected, but the simple shapes and bright colors of books for toddlers are adapted to their abilities: here is a baby who stares intently at the book object, who follows the character on the page, which turns its head so as not to miss a beat. The parents then notice: “he is attentive! “, ” he is watching ! »
Albums for toddlers are built around elementary narrative structures, often with a strongly marked ending, which sometimes makes babies react: one suddenly opens their eyes, another stretches, another vocalizes. The parents are intrigued and delighted: “he’s interested!” » Suddenly, this baby whom they perceived mainly through the prism of his inabilities (he does not yet breathe or eat on his own) becomes a child full of skills, whom they can admire and encourage.
If the first readings can be done by caregivers, or outside the medical field, leaving the books in the rooms then allows parents to go back to the albums alone, in moments of privacy, and share them in turn with their baby. These parents to whom the healthcare team advises them to “talk” to their baby are sometimes short of topics of conversation, short of words: the albums then “lend” them these words that they lack.
When they have to choose, parents often select albums with a tender theme, whose title, in the first or second person, makes them their “spokesperson”: Guess how much I love you, I will always be there for you, What are you dreaming of baby? Through the book, the voice of the parents carries to the baby the words that they did not find alone, but which express their emotion.
Through reading, escape from astonishment and project yourself towards the future
Reading aloud, upset by a premature birth or worrying medical information, allows parents to experience a moment of escape in harmony with their baby. Overwhelmed by the responsibility, sometimes the guilt that goes with a child’s illness, we give them a moment for themselves, of pure pleasure. They receive the reading of a story, a moment gathered around their child, occupied solely with the pleasure of the language and the images, and the joy of seeing their baby wake up. This moment, although very brief, will remain inscribed in their emotional memory of this upset birth.
Sharing reading then becomes lastingly attached to a memory of pleasure, relaxation and emotion. We can assume that this facilitates the family practice of reading, so favorable to the development of language and literacy, this set of early familiarizations which subsequently allow entry into writing. These babies, whose premature birth places them at greater risk of language delays and learning difficulties, will benefit even more from these family exposures to books and reading, which scientific literature has demonstrated to be decisive for the whole of cognitive development.
Implementing album reading programs for children in a neonatology department does not make sense, but has shown its interest. Even caregivers recognize that the climate changes in the rooms, and that the stories read to the babies they care for allow them to see their little patients in a different light. The presence of books helps parents come out of their astonishment and look forward to the future.
Sharing reading with the family allows parents to look at their child from the perspective of his or her abilities. The books, left in the rooms during the hospitalization, support the triggering of speech addressed to the baby, very favorable to his support. And the positive experience, in terms of escape, pleasure and symbiosis, represented by reading offered and shared with the family, makes it possible to lastingly associate reading and pleasure, which bodes favorably for subsequent family literacy practices, predictive of harmonious language and cognitive development.
*Cécile Boulaire, lecturer in youth literature, University of Tours
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