Biography of Dr. Rosemary White-Traut

Rosemary White-Traut is department head of Maternal/Child Nursing, College of Nursing, University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. White-Traut is a member of the advisory boards of the Johnson and Johnson Pediatric Institute. Dr. White-Traut is a past member of the board of directors of the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetrics, and Neonatal Nursing, a national professional nursing association.

Dr. White-Traut’s program of research over the last 21 years has focused on developmental intervention for specific subgroups. This multi-sensory intervention, known as ATVV intervention, provides auditory stimuli via female human voice; tactile stimuli as light stroking; visual stimuli, eye-to-eye contact; and vestibular, as rocking, stimuli. The ATVV begins with ten minutes of a light massage followed by five minutes of rocking. The auditory and visual stimuli are presented throughout the intervention.

Dr. White-Traut’s research with premature infants and their mothers has included the evaluation of physiologic and behavioral responses of clinically stable premature infants 36, 35, and 33–34 weeks gestational age. Patterns of maternal-infant interaction have been documented to improve when mothers are taught to administer the ATVV intervention on their premature infants 24 hours after delivery. The ATVV has also been shown to have beneficial effects on feeding and development for preterm infants who have been diagnosed with brain injury. Dr. White-Traut has also evaluated full term infants who were prenatally exposed to illicit substances and documented physiologic and behavioral responses. Her research has recently expanded to evaluating feeding and transition to home for infants at biologic and social risk; neuro-hormonal responses of infants and their mothers to developmental intervention; and the impact of the special care nursery environment on physiologic responses of premature infants.