Efeito de quatro meses de intervenção aquática no desenvolvimento motor de bebês

Abstract

Introduction: The baby's sensory experiences about the environment occur through movements, through exploration. Its scope and depth depend on the ability to control these movements, defining their quality. The participation of babies in water activities has increased considerably, however, in the literature there is a lack of investigations into their influence on motor development. Objective: To investigate the effect of four months of aquatic intervention on the motor development of babies. Method: The sample consisted of 17 babies, of both sexes, aged six to nine months at the initial assessment, with no previous experience with systematized motor activity. Those responsible answered a socioeconomic questionnaire and anamnesis about the breastfeeding period, gestation period and whether the babies had already attended a daycare center. The Denver II Test was applied to evaluate maturational development and, together with information from the questionnaires, the babies were paired into two groups: experimental (EG, n =10, 7.5 ±1.08 months), four months old intervention and control (CG, n = 7, 7.43 ± 0.98 months), without intervention. The intervention with aquatic activities began one month after the initial assessment. Classes lasted 30 minutes, divided into three moments: parent-child interaction, material handling and submersion, twice a week. The interval between classes was a minimum of one and a maximum of four days. The dependent variable, motor development, was assessed using the Alberta Infant Motor Scale (EMIA) applied to both groups at three moments: at the beginning of the experiment, after three months and after five months. The results were presented as mean and standard deviation. Comparison of the raw EMIA scores of babies in the CG (Friedman test, followed by the Wilcoxon post hoc test) indicated an increase in the second and third assessment. In GE there was a significant increase only in the second assessment. In the comparison between groups (U of Man Whitney) there was no difference in the first assessment, indicating that the groups started in a similar way, in the second assessment the EG showed significant superiority with a medium effect size and in the third assessment there was no significant difference. Conclusion: In the evaluation per baby with intervention, there was no reduction in the raw score, maintenance values were higher and later than those of babies without intervention. By age, except for the group that started at 6 months in the 2nd assessment, the average with intervention was higher than without intervention. In the percentile classification, babies with intervention showed a lower proportion of regression and a higher proportion of progression and maintenance, also later. Two months of intervention with aquatic activities led to a better EMIA score, both in relation to the previous assessment (3 months before) and also compared to babies without intervention, adding evidence for the benefits of aquatic activities on the motor development of babies.