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Neonatal touch enhanced by grounding?
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Neonatal touch enhanced by grounding?
I had a friend, years ago, who told me that when she would visit her premature baby in the NICU, she would place her hand on his head, and she would instantly see a change in his heart rate. I found this fascinating, and this is apparently a well-known practice. But, what if it’s more than just the presence of the mother, what if the mother is acting as a ground?
Copilot:
In most Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs), parents are encouraged to physically touch and bond with their baby—though it depends on the baby’s medical condition and the hospital’s protocols.
👶 Common forms of touch allowed in NICUs include:
- Gentle hand-holding or containment touch: Placing your hands on your baby’s head and feet to provide comfort and stability.
- Skin-to-skin contact (kangaroo care): When medically appropriate, many NICUs support this powerful bonding practice, which can help regulate the baby’s temperature, heart rate, and breathing.
- Diaper changes, feeding, and bathing: As your baby stabilizes, nurses often guide parents in participating in these care routines.
- Talking, singing, and scent bonding: Even when touch is limited, your voice and presence can be soothing. Some NICUs allow parents to leave a cloth with their scent near the baby.
It just so happens that a clinical study was done on grounding in the NICU which proves that grounding has a profound impact on Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and thus vagal tone:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28601861/
Abstract
Background: Low vagal tone (VT) is a marker of vulnerability to stress and the risk of developing necrotizing enterocolitis in preterm infants. Electric fields produced by equipment in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) induce an electric potential measurable on the skin in reference to ground. An electrical connection to ground reduces the skin potential and improves VT in adults.
Objectives: We aimed to measure the electric field strengths in the NICU environment and to determine if connecting an infant to electrical ground would reduce the skin potential and improve VT. We also wished to determine if the skin potential correlated with VT.
Methods: Environmental magnetic flux density (MFD) was measured in and around incubators. Electrical grounding (EG) was achieved with a patch electrode and wire that extended to a ground outlet. We measured the skin potential in 26 infants and heart rate variability in 20 infants before, during, and after grounding. VT was represented by the high-frequency power of heart rate variability.
Results: The background MFD in the NICU was below 0.5 mG, but it ranged between 1.5 and 12.7 mG in the closed incubator. A 60-Hz oscillating potential was recorded on the skin of all infants. With EG, the skin voltage dropped by about 95%. Pre-grounding VT was inversely correlated with the skin potential. VT increased by 67% with EG. After grounding, the VT fell to the pre-grounding level.
Conclusion: The electrical environment affects autonomic balance. EG improves VT and may improve resilience to stress and lower the risk of neonatal morbidity in preterm infants.
Keywords: Electrical grounding; Electromagnetic fields; Heart rate variability; Vagal tone.
What the above describes is that today we have babies being placed in electrically insulated boxes and in an environment with a lot of EMF. The sum total of this is that the baby’s body is being subjected to undue stress, literally stress is being induced in the vagus nerve due to the environment. Once you ground the baby, it shunts the currents that are building due to EMF and electrical insulation to ground, protecting the baby from the harmful environment.
Now, how do we reform hospital practices?
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Electrical Grounding Improves Vagal Tone in Preterm Infants - PubMed
The electrical environment affects autonomic balance. EG improves VT and may improve resilience to stress and lower the risk of neonatal morbidity in preterm infants.
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2 Replies
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What an interesting topic, thank you, @jrgerber, for bringing attention to another area that needs some real science and reform applied to it.
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Yes, I think very much so.
It might be hard to believe at first that a modern hospital environment could be toxic, or even long-term care facilities, but I think it is very easy to make this argument and the solutions are simple. We simply need to want to make hospitals better and make them comply with better environmental design practices for their patients.
For example, we know historically of Legionnaires’ disease via air conditioning in hospitals led to deaths.
“It’s a severe form of pneumonia caused by the bacterium Legionella pneumophila, which thrives in warm, stagnant water. Large building systems that use water for cooling — like cooling towers in air conditioning units, hospital HVAC systems, and decorative fountains — can become breeding grounds if not properly maintained.”
Dr. Marik in 2023 gave this beautiful example from 1918 https://imahealth.org/courses/conference-2023-spring-basic/lessons/2023-1-l06-b-sunlight-photobiomodulation-and-sauna-treatment-dr-paul-marik/ . (see the attached screenshot of his slide deck). In 1918 was the Spanish Flu and what they observed was that when they had an overflow of patients at the hospital and they placed patients outdoors, those patients healed in a fraction of the time. Dr. Marik quoted Dr. Brooks from that time as saying “A few medicines were used to relieve the patients’ symptoms and aid their
recovery, but these were considered less important than were regular meals, warmth, and plenty of fresh air and sunlight.”
Today we have EMF from lighting and electronics, lack of natural lighting providing near-infrared, “Low Emissivity” windows that block infrared and allow UV to pass through, air conditioning stripping the air of healthy negative ions, and a contained environment that insulates us from ground which amplifies the effects of the EMF. Vinyl flooring is great for easy cleaning but also one of the best electrical insulators.
In Ancient Rome they developed the first hospitals. Hospitals had a central courtyard which was for the purpose of light, and air circulation.
It seems every time we have something man-made; it comes at a price. The creature comfort of air conditioning, the provision of lighting, the easy of cleaning or the benefits of electricity and computing. It’s not that we can’t make these things healthy, it’s that we didn’t think about the need for making them healthy when we designed them. Unless someone does a study like this neonatal one, or like the 1918 Spanish Flu report, we will never know that mortality and survival could be better in an environment that is supposed to be for the purpose of healing and care.
For example, how to prevent the effects of EMF (electromagnetic field) emissions is something well known. In fact, the NSA and NATO have a certification called Tempest. When signals are leaked from say military equipment, it can leak information and Tempest is that which prevents/blocks this from happening. If medical equipment had the equivalent type of certification, this would cut down on EMF in the hospital environment. The most basic tactic is what is known as a Faraday cage. If you look at the window on a microwave oven, you’ll notice it has a bunch of tiny holes. The holes are in fact made to be of a size which traps the microwave signal, using the Faraday cage concept. It’s quite simple actually and I’ll let copilot explain here:
– Microwave wavelength – The oven operates at about 2.45 GHz, which corresponds to a wavelength of roughly 12 cm (4.7 in).
– Hole size – The mesh holes are only about 1–2 mm in diameter — far smaller than the wavelength of the microwaves. Electromagnetic waves can’t pass through openings much smaller than their wavelength, so the mesh reflects the microwaves back into the cooking chamber.
This works great for higher frequencies. The power in the US is at the very low frequency of 60 Hz and for that you can’t create a Faraday cage. Instead, as this NICU article pointed out, strategies involving grounding are required to address 60Hz.
As for the ill effects of air conditioning and countering it with an improvement of negative ions:
January 2025 article: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42865-025-00092-3
“Effectiveness of a negative ion generator “Instashield” for indoor air disinfection: evidence from tertiary care hospital and GLP laboratory settings”
https://pubs.sciepub.com/rpbs/1/4/1/
“There’s Something in the Air: Empirical Evidence for the Effects of Negative Air Ions (NAI) on Psychophysiological State and Performance”
“Public Health and Epidemiological Implications of Ionized Air: Negative Air Ions and Their Role in Microbial Reduction – Evidence from The Ravne Tunnel Complex in Bosnia-Herzegovina”
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