A growing body of peer-reviewed research in Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs) demonstrates that developmentally appropriate gentle touch and massage can provide measurable short-term benefits for healthy term infants and for carefully selected, medically stable preterm infants. Studies have reported improvements in physiologic regulation, weight gain, sleep organization, and behavioral state stability when touch interventions are delivered with appropriate clinical oversight. In addition to supporting infant comfort and neurobehavioral organization, guided parent-delivered touch interventions have been associated with increased parental confidence, reduced caregiver stress, and stronger early bonding. These findings support the careful integration of healing, nurturing touch as a developmentally sensitive component of family-centered care in the NICU.
Significant Evidence-Based Research Findings of Infant Massage
• Decreased levels of anxiety, stress, and depressive symptoms in mothers and establishes parent-infant connections (1)
• Facilitates weight gain in preterm infants
• Lowers levels of cortisol, the stress hormone
• Increases muscle tone
• Improves sleep and awake patterns
• Shortens lengths of stay in hospitals
• Improves cognitive and motor development at eight months of age
• Infant massage is an inexpensive tool
• Can be used as part of the developmental care plan of preterm infants
• Recent research shows there are significant benefits to infant massage that out weigh over-stimulation
• Properly applied techniques produce increased benefits, such as improved developmental scores and earlier discharge
The Touch Research Institute in Miami, Florida, now the Miller School of Medicine is where Dr. Tiffany Field first started research on the benefits of infant massage in the NICU. She has been the leader in examining the benefits of infant massage with premature infants to the well-baby.
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1 Dana McCarty, PT, DPT, Rachel Silver, PT, DPT, Lauren Quinn, OTD, OTR/L, Stacey Dusing, PT, PHD, T. MIchael O”shea, MPH, MD. “Infant Massage as a Stress Management Technique for Parents of Hospitalized Extremely Preterm Infants, Infant Mental Health J, 2024 January; 45 (1)