The Effect of Nesting on Sleep Quality in Low-Birth-Weight Infants in NICU Grandmed Hospital Lubuk Pakam

Low birth weight (LBW) infants often experience sleep disturbances due to an immature nervous system and environmental factors in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). One non-pharmacological intervention that may improve sleep quality in LBW infants is nesting, a positioning technique designed to mimic the intrauterine environment. This study aimed to determine the effect of nesting on sleep quality among LBW infants in the NICU of Grandmed Lubuk Pakam Hospital. A pre-experimental study with a one-group pretest–posttest design was conducted involving 20 LBW infants selected using total sampling. Sleep quality was assessed on day 1 (pretest), day 4, and day 7 using an observation checklist. Data were analyzed using univariate and bivariate analyses. The Shapiro–Wilk test indicated that the data were not normally distributed (p ≤ 0.05); therefore, the Friedman test was used. Before the intervention, all infants had poor sleep quality (100.0%), with a mean rank of 1.35. The mean rank increased to 1.80 on day 4 and 2.85 on day 7, when all infants were classified as having good sleep quality (100.0%). The Friedman test revealed a statistically significant difference in sleep quality across the three measurement times (p < 0.001). These findings indicate that sleep quality improved over the observation period following the nesting intervention. Nesting may be a simple and practical non-pharmacological intervention in NICU care; however, because the study did not include a control group, the improvement cannot be attributed solely to the intervention.