"Investigation of Trunk and Extremity Movement Associated With Passive Head Turning in Newborns" by Clopton, Duvall, Ellis, Musser, and Varghese (2000). The purpose of this study was to determine if extremity and trunk responses to passive head turning could be measured in the newborn infant.
The procedures for this study were as follows: subjects were newborn infants (n = 50), with no known medical problems, born with uncomplicated spontaneous vaginal delivery or routine cesarean section, and weighing a minimum of 5 pounds. Some subjects (n = 4) were used to test for best camera angle and placements for recording, and to assess inter-rater reliability (n = 4). The remaining 42 subjects were used to collect data. An investigator turned the heads of the newborns to the left and right, while they were videotaped. The videotapes were halted at intervals of 5 seconds while the direction of the head turn with the rest of the body obscured was recorded by the first investigator, and a second investigator recorded trunk and extremity positions with head obscured. Subjects were taped between 4 hours and 7 days after birth. Additional procedures included that infants were awake, not crying, undressed except for diapers, and videotaped in a supine position. The head turn recordings included left, right, or neutral rated according to the direction of the face. Extremity recordings were left, right, and neutral, rated according to the direction of convexity of trunk incurvation. Trunk recordings were left or right based on a clear difference between the 2 sides of the body; this rating was based on the lumbar trunk and pelvic tilt to show trunk convexity. Since research has shown that there is a delay of 1 to 7 seconds after the head is turned for the asymmetrical tonic neck reflex (ATNR) to begin, the first 5-second frame of this study was omitted. The analysis included an average of 6.71 frames per infant; frames
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