Moderate versus light pressure massage therapy leads to greater weight gain in preterm infants
Section snippets
Participants
Sixty-eight preterm infants (M GA = 30 weeks, M BWT = 1292 g) were randomly assigned to receive moderate or light pressure massage therapy three times per day for 5 days. This assignment was based on a stratification to ensure group similarity on factors noted to affect weight gain including gestational age, birth weight, days in the NICU (M = 23 days) and study entry weight (M = 1789 g). The groups did not differ on these variables.
Preterm infants were recruited for this study if: (a) their gestational
Results
Repeated measures ANOVAS were conducted with pre-session and session values as the repeated measures, and Bonferroni t tests were conducted on interaction effects. As can be seen in Table 1, the moderate versus the light pressure massage therapy group showed a greater increase in weight gain from the beginning to the end of the 5-day massage therapy period (M = 6 g versus 2 g increase per day) (t = 2.39, p < .02). On the behavioral observations, the moderate versus light pressure massage group showed:
Discussion
The moderate pressure massage therapy group gained more weight than the light pressure massage group. The increased weight gain shown by the moderate pressure massage group is consistent with increased weight gain in many studies on both preterm infants (Diego et al., 2004; Dieter, Field, Hernandez-Reif, Emory, & Redzepi, 2003; Field et al., 1986) and full-term infants (Field et al., 2004, Goldstein-Ferber, 2004; Moyer-Mileur, Brunstetter, McNaught, Gill, & Chan, 2000).
These data also suggest
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the mothers and infants who participated in this study and Julia Beutler, Larissa Feijo, Karla Gill and Yanexy Vera for their help with participant recruitment and data collection. We would also like to thank John Allen for his help with EKG analysis software. This research was supported by Senior Research Scientist Awards (#MH00331 and #AT01585) and an NIHM merit award (MH #46586) and a March of Dimes Grant (#12-FY03-48) to Tiffany Field, an NCCAM research Grant to Maria
References (14)
- et al.
Vagal activity, gastric motility, and weight gain in massaged preterm neonates
The Journal of Pediatrics
(2005) - et al.
Massage therapy by parents improves early growth and development
Infant Behavior and Development
(2004) Calculating metrics of cardiac chronotropy: A pragmatic overview
Psychophysics
(2002)- et al.
Massage therapy of moderate and light pressure and vibrator effects on EEG and heart rate
International Journal of Neuroscience
(2004) - et al.
Stable preterm infants gain more weight and sleep less following 5 days of massage therapy
Journal of Pediatric Psychology
(2003) Stimulation of preterm infants
Pediatrics Review
(1988)- et al.
Tactile/kinesthetic stimulation effects on preterm neonates
Pediatrics
(1986)