Physical movement can benefit bones of preemies

The ability of physical activity to reduce osteoporosis and fractures in aging adults is well-established. Now researchers are showing physical movement can benefit low birth weight infants.  The infants are not asked to jog or forced to pump iron. Instead an occupational therapist puts them through range-of-motion movements with passive resistance and gentle extension/flexion to all extremities for five to 10 minutes each day. Gentle joint compression was also performed by researchers from the University of Utah school of medicine Salt Lake City.


  This kind of activity can augment bone mineral content by about 40% over four weeks said Dr. Laurie Moyer-Mileur at the American Federation for Clinical Research's Western meetings here.  For low birth weight infants osteopenia is a significant problem. About half of all infants with birth weights less than 1000 g have demineralized bone and 70% of those with osteopenia develop a fracture.  Low birth weight infants have a limited accretion of bone mass in utero Dr. Moyer-Mileur said and bone mineralization does not begin to approach normal levels until after the first year of life.


 It's common to swaddle premature infants in the nursery as a means of decreasing sensory and physical over-stimulation. But this lack of physical activity may actually increase bone resorption as it does in bedridden adults she said.  The Utah researchers looked at the effects of a physical activity program in controlled study of 30 healthy infants with gestational ages of 26 to 32 weeks and birth weights of less than 1500 g.  Physical activity was begun as soon as the infants could tolerate oral feeding at approximately two weeks of age. None received medication other than vitamin supplements.


 Half the infants underwent daily physical activity and the rest were held and stroked daily to control for the possibility that tactile stimulation encouraged growth. There was no difference between the two groups in daily energy and nutrient intake.  By the end of four weeks those in the physical activity group had gained significantly more weight but not more linear growth.  Radial bone mass determined by single-beam photon absorptiometry of the distal radius increased in the activity group but declined slightly in the control group

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