Time‐Lapse Filming of Newborn Infants: A new Technique in Monitoring of Behavioral States

Knowledge of the newborn infant's behavior is of great importance for an understanding of postnatal adaptation and the influence of exogenous stimuli, such as drugs. To date, however, the methods used have been to sophisticated and complex for use on a busy ward. Moreover, procedures for monitoring physiological parameters in this age group should be non-invasive and gentle for the infant, and acceptable to parents and personnel. In this paper, a simplified technique is presented where observation of the infant can be registered with an ordinary super-8 movie camera adapted to time-lapse. Heart rate, EMG and vocalization are recorded simultaneously. The time-lapse filming technique is relatively easy to learn, it is simple and economic and can be used even during routine clinical care. Assessments were made from the films only, from the recordings only and from a combination of films and recordings. All these modes of assessment were found to be satisfactorily reproducible. Filming combined with respiratory recording gives sufficient information to classify neonatal infant behavior.