Effect of Smelling Amniotic Fluid on Comfort and Crying in Preterm Infants During Peripheral Cannulation: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract

The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of smelling amniotic fluid on comfort and duration of crying caused by peripheral cannulation in preterm infants. This was a randomized controlled trial. The study sample consisted of 80 preterm infants meeting the case selection criteria. The infants were randomly assigned to experimental and control group. Upon exclusion of some infants from the study, total number of infants in both groups was 61. The infants in the amniotic fluid group smelled amniotic fluid for 15 minutes before, during, and for 15 minutes after the ap-plication of peripheral cannulation, whereas the infants in the control group did not undergo any in-tervention other than routine care. The level of comfort was significantly higher and the duration of crying lower in the infants from the amniotic fluid group as compared with control group before, during and after the procedure. The intervention of smelling amniotic fluid was found to be an effective practice that could be used for reducing the length of crying and increase comfort in preterm infants undergoing peripheral cannulation.

Keywords

• Amniotic fluid
• Crying
• Catheterization
• Infant, newborn
• Infant, premature