Materials and Methods
birth defect, congenital abnormality
A parallel design randomised control trial with an allocation ratio of 1:1 was conducted from March 2021 to April 2022 in Belagavi, Karnataka, South India. Approval for the study was obtained from the KLE Institute of Physiotherapy’s Institutional Ethical Committee (KIPT/Sl no. 579, dated 16 July 2021) and registered with CTRI (CTRI/2022/01/039604). Participants recruited and included were parent-infant dyads, with infants of corrected age (premature baby’s chronological age minus the number of weeks or months they were born early) 5 months 0 days to 6 months 30 days, who were permanent residents of Belgavi and interested in participating as well as willing to provide written informed consent. Infants with a history of or diagnosis with any birth defect or congenital abnormality, or who had undergone any surgery in the previous three months, were excluded. A sample size of 36 was obtained using the formula 
