Moderate versus light pressure massage therapy leads to greater weight gain in preterm infants

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Abstract

Sixty-eight preterm infants (M GA = 30 weeks) were randomly assigned to a moderate or to a light pressure massage therapy group to receive 15 massages three times per day for 5 days. Behavior state, stress behaviors and heart rate were recorded for 15 min before and during the first 15-min therapy session. Weight gain was recorded over the 5-day therapy period. The moderate versus light pressure massage group gained significantly more weight per day. During the behavior observations the moderate versus light pressure massage group showed significantly lower increases from the pre-session to the session recording on: (1) active sleep; (2) fussing; (3) crying; (4) movement; and (5) stress behavior (hiccupping). They also showed a smaller decrease in deep sleep, a greater decrease in heart rate and a greater increase in vagal tone. Thus, the moderate pressure massage therapy group appeared to be more relaxed and less aroused than the light pressure massage group which may have contributed to the greater weight gain of the moderate pressure massage therapy group.

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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

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