Just a quick heads-up for the next round in pacifiers. After reading this,
one wonders how any infant can live past his first week without this wonder
product.

Marsha Walker, RN, IBCLC
Weston, MA
----------------------------------

Infants Thrive With Musical Pacifier


TALLAHASSEE, Fla.--(BW HealthWire)--Dec. 14, 1999--Research at Florida State
University (FSU) now pushes music's mysterious power into a potentially
revolutionary dimension in modifying baby behavior.

The year 2000 will see the commercial debut of the world's first musical
pacifier, a device conceived by an FSU innovator in music therapy.

A product of 10 years of research led by music therapist Dr. Jayne Standley,
the device combines the soothing power of lullabies with an ingenious design
that helps newborn infants grasp the critically important skill of sucking, a
talent not all babies are born.

Aimed specifically at addressing a long-standing problem among premature
infants -- delayed proficiencies in learning to suck from either breast or
bottle -- Standley's musical pacifier has demonstrated what she calls
"amazing" results in repeated tests done at Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare,
a local hospital.

The device delivers music reinforcement each time a premature infant sucks a
specially wired pacifier. Infants thus learn to suck along with reassuring
sounds of CD-based lullabies (all recorded by female performers) while
worried mothers and care-givers get pacified at the same time.

Scheduled to be marketed under the name "PAL," (Pacifier Activated Lullaby),
the invention exploits infants' natural appetite for music and applies it in
a medically useful way for neonatal care.  In only minutes, "'preemies' as
young as 8 months and weighing as little as three pounds can get the hang of
the pacifier," says Standley.  "In one test, a 'preemie' who had never fed
orally before sucked down a whole bottle of formula after 15 minutes of
training with the musical pacifier," Stanley said.

Poor or entirely missing sucking skills in infants -- both premature and
full-term -- is a common occurrence that inhibits babies' physical and mental
development and can lead to protracted -- and thus costly -- stays in
hospitals and birth centers. FSU is licensing the development of its musical
pacifier to a healthcare company that specializes in providing music therapy
equipment to hospitals.

The pacifier prototype will be highlighted on Dec. 16, 1999, at the National
Association of Neonatal Nurses in Orlando, Fla., with Dr. Standley as one of
the speakers.  The musical pacifier will hit the medical market in four to
six months.

(1) Beta and VHS video available upon request.

CONTACT:

Florida State University

Matt Quinn, 202/785-6703

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