Usefulness of ‘Babkin Reflex’ in normal term Indian infants
Abstract
Background: The Babkin Reflex belongs to the group of rarely defined and used primitive reflexes, being easily elicited in normal newborns during wakeful state particularly before feeding. To the best of our knowledge there have been no studies in India about the validity and usefulness of this reflex.
Aim: The purpose of this study was to observe the consistency in duration of appearance and disappearance of the reflex in normal Term infants.
Settings and Design: Hospital based, prospective, observational, longitudinal, single ethnicity study.
Method: A prospective observational study was conducted to study the Babkin reflex in two thousand normal infants and also analyzed the average time of disappearance of the reflex. Descriptive statistics with rate were used.
Results and Conclusion: In normal term infants, the Babkin reflex can be elicited from the time of birth, becomes increasingly suppressed with age, and disappears in the great majority by the end of the fifth month of age. Babkin reflex is surprisingly a fairly consistent primitive reflex which can be used as a screening reflex in all infants. Persistence of this reflex beyond 5 months of age mandates frequent neurological assessment.
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Copyright (c) 2019 Author (s). Published by Siddharth Health Research and Social Welfare Society
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