Preterm Infants' Weight Gain Following Massage Therapy

The specific aims of this study are: 1) to replicate the data that following ten days of massage therapy, preterm infants show greater daily weight gain and are discharged from the hospital earlier than the controls, thus demonstrating the cost-effectiveness of the intervention; 2) to test a model on two potential underlying mechanisms for weight gain including a) enhanced vagal activity leading to greater gastric motility, higher levels of insulin, IGF-1, and oxytocin and lower cortisol levels in the massage versus the control infants at the end of the study; and/or b) increased physical activity and its associated increase in heart rate oxygen consumption and temperature leading to greater weight gain. These pathways (vagal activity and physical activity) will be tested by path analyses. Determining underlying mechanisms for the massage therapy/weight gain relationship is a critical process required by the neonatology community for massage therapy to be adopted as a standard neonatal intensive care unit.