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Study examining temperature increase in preterm infants during massage and kinesthetic stimulation

This study published by Diego et al. in Infant Behavioral Development. 2008 examined the effects of massage and kinesthetic stimulation on the temperature in preterm infants. Previous studies on massage therapy seem to show positive outcomes on preterm infant birth weight and reduced hospitalization; however, it was unclear whether opening incubators to perform the massage therapy may have a negative impact on the preterm infants’ body temperature. Therefore the authors pursued this study to determine whether heat loss during massage therapy might negatively impact the body temperature of preterm infants and thus might be unsafe to perform. 

The authors enrolled 72 infants with 48 completing the study into two groups: Control group (CG) and Massage Group (MG). All infants had all their clothing removed just prior to the experiment. Next, the infants temperature from both groups was recorded over a 45 minute period in 3 phases (15 minutes each). The first 15 minutes was to obtain a baseline temperature and the last 15 minutes was a cooling down period. The middle 15 minutes was further divided into 5 minute blocks for the massage group infants. During the first and last 5 minutes the massage group infants were given tactile massage over the entire body and during the middle 5 minutes they were given kinesthetic stimulation (flexion/extension of extremities). The control group received no stimulation throughout the 45 minute period.

Conclusions:

• The study found that the infants in the control group had an increase in body temperature throughout the experiment. The authors suggest this was due to gradual increase in temperature in the incubator following closure of incubator (after undressing) where heat should have been lost.

• The temperature of the massaged infants peaked during the 15 minute massage session (p<0.001) and remained significantly elevated during the final 15 minute post-massage period (p<0.001)

• The temperature of the massage group was significantly greater than the control group during both the 15 minute massage period and 15 minute post-massage period (p<0.001 and p<0.05, respectively).

• Given the results of this study the authors concluded that massage therapy poses no risk of heat loss to the preterm infants undergoing massage therapy. Furthermore, they concluded that massage therapy actually has an overall positive impact on body temperature during and after the massage.   

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