The Effects of Massage Therapy to Induce Sleep in Infants Born Preterm

Abstract

Purpose The aim of this study was to determine if massage therapy can be used as an adjunct intervention to induce sleep in infants born preterm. Methods Thirty infants born at a minimum of 28 weeks gestational age (GA), who were at the time of the study between 32-48 weeks adjusted GA, were randomly assigned to receive massage therapy on 1 day and not receive massage on an alternate day. The Motionlogger® Micro Sleep Watch® Actigraph recorded lower extremity activity on the morning of each day. Results No significant difference was found between groups for sleep efficiency (P=.13) for the time period evaluated. Groups differed significantly during the time period after the massage ended with more infants sleeping on the non-massage day (Χ2= 4.9802, P=.026). Conclusions Massage is well tolerated in infants born preterm and infants do not fall asleep faster after massage than without massage.

Review of Randomized Controlled Trials of Massage in Preterm Infants

“…Other outcomes assessed in RCTs of massage in preterm infants include levels of transcutaneous bilirubin [3], sleep [4,26], calorie intake [5,17,19,30,33,34,35], vagal activity [5,19,24,26,29,30], gastric motility or number of stools [3,24,30], heart rate variability (HRV) [6,7,19,24,30], immunologic parameters [12], bone metabolism [11,32], changes in electroencephalogram (EEG) [13], behavior and/or neurodevelopment [14,15,23,26,28,29,31,34,35], pain [25], length of hospital stay [12,16,18] and levels of serum markers such as insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-1) [8,19], adiponectin [8], and serum triglycerides [9,27,31]. …”

“…More infants were reported to sleep on the non-massage day ( p = 0.026) [4]. Several studies have assessed the effects of massage on behavior and/or neurodevelopment of preterm infants [14,15,23,26,28,29,31,34,35].…”

Assessing Factors Influencing the Quality of Developmental Care in Neonatal Intensive Care Units of Tehran

“…Sleep and sleep-awake cycle are essential to neural and sensory processing, learning, memory development, brain development, and ability for constant changes against stimuli (25). Impaired sleep leads to physiological instability and reduced brain plasticity, resulting in reduced optimal development of a preterm infant (26).…”

The Effects of Massage on theWeight Gain of Preterm Infants: A Systematic Review

“…Massage implements decrease the stress, sleep-nonsleep balance bring to maturity, rise mother-baby connection, contributing to the development of preterm, drop the hyperbilirubinemia, weight gain, late period neonatal sepsis prevention. [3][4][5][6][7][8][9] It is important to note that weight gain, which is of the growth and development parameters, may greatly mitigate the number of preterms requiring examinations. Moreover, it is emphasized that optimal weight gain is deemed to be linked with the insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) that possesses roles in regulation of activation of retinal vascular endothelial growth factor by IGF-1 and retinal vascular growth early in postnatal life.…”