Massage and premature infants:
Premature infants face many challenges not encountered by
their full-term counterparts.
Medical advances are being utilized to save the lives of
many infants born prematurely who would not otherwise survive. All modern
the neonatal intensive care units (NICU’s) address the basic issues of neonatal
health such as temperature stability, nutrition, and infection control.
Massage is being studied as an
adjunct to these basic measures to help promote not only survival, but optimal
growth and development. There has been concern about the artificial environment
of NICU in which premature infants find themselves. They are
separated prematurely from the womb environment but they are not exposed to the
same cuddling, holding, and feeding patterns of full-term, healthy newborns.
Massage has been studied as a way to introduce these infants to a
more “natural" form of touch. The results of many studies have shown
that massage is not only safe but also beneficial to these infants.
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