Noise phenomena in distress cries of term and very preterm infants at term-equivalent age

Background and aim: To examine whether the noise components in distress cries of term infants differed from very preterm infants whose cries were collected at a comparable “corrected” gestational age. Methods: Distress cries were collected from 20 term and 20 preterm infants. The cries were acoustically examined for the occurrence of aperiodic phonatory behavior within and across moments of crying. Results: The findings indicated no significant differences between term and preterm infants at term age in the occurrence of noise. Conclusions: Distress cries of both term and term-equivalent preterm infants appear to contain high instances of phonatory noise. The high arousal associated with distress crying and associated increase in subglottal pressure appeared to influence both term and term-equivalent preterm infants similarly.