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Infant Massage Benefits for Infants and Parents and Society

Infant Massage Tiffany Field, Ph.D.

The Benefits of Massage for Mother and Baby Chris Prince, CMT, M.A

The Power of Touch Research Quantifies Clinical Benefits of Massage for Infants and Children - Pediatricians Encouraged to Tap the Power of Touch - PRNewswire

Touch Our Children, Teach Our Children - Karrie Osborn

Hands-On-Healing
New medical research suggests that massage can help anyone-from premature babies to people with AIDS - Massage Bodywork Quarterly

Touch Therapy - Kathleen Brinkman, RN, MSN 
University Affiliated Cincinnati Center for Developmental Disorders Cincinnati, Ohio 

Infant Massage benefits for baby, parents, and society are numerous.  A few of the benefits are listed here. 

Benefits for Infants
• Improves immune system
• Helps baby learn to relax
• Promotes sounder and longer sleep
• Promotes positive body image
• Promotes bonding and communication
• Helps to regulate digestive, respiratory, and circulatory systems
• Helps relieve discomfort from gas and colic, congestion, and teething
• Decreases production of stress hormones

Benefits for Parents
• Provides a special focused time that helps deepen bonding.
• Helps parents to understand and respond appropriately to baby's nonverbal cues
• Promotes feelings of competence and confidence in caring for baby
• Improves parent-infant communication
• Increases parents' ability to help child relax in times of stress
• Eases stress of parent who must be separated from child during the day
• It is fun and relaxing for parents to massage their children.            

Other Benefits
• Cross cultural studies show that babies who are held, massaged, carried, rocked and breast fed, grow into adults that are less aggressive and violent, and are more compassionate and cooperative
• Recent research shows benefits for premature infants, children with asthma, diabetes, and certain skin disorders. 
• Mothers with post partum depression have shown improvement after starting infant massage
• Teenage mothers have shown improved bonding behavior and interactions with their infants TOP

Infant Massage
Tiffany Field, Ph.D.
Touch Research Institute
University of Miami School of Medicine

Edited from the Zero to Three Journal, October/November 1993

The Calcutta mother lays her infant on his stomach on the mother’s outstretched legs, and the body parts are individually stretched. Warm water and soap are applied to the lower extremities for massage, followed by the arms, back, abdomen, neck and face. The massage looks extremely rigorous (almost rough), so it is not surprising that the infant (following swaddling) then sleeps for prolonged periods. The Indian infant massage is a daily routine that begins in the first days of life. Some have related the precocious motor development of these infants to their daily massage. Infant massage therapists are not surprised, as they maintain that the massage provides both stimulation and relaxation. It stimulates respiration, circulation, digestion and elimination. They claim that infants who are massaged sleep more soundly and that the massage relieves gas and colic and helps the healing process during illness by easing congestion and pain.

Infant massage is a common child care practice in many parts of the world, most especially Africa and Asia. For example, infants are massaged for several months of their life in Nigeria, Uganda, India, Bali, Fiji, New Guinea, New Zealand (among the Maori), Venezuela and the Soviet Union (Auckett, 1981). In most of these countries the infant is given a massage with oil following the daily bath and prior to sleep time.

Infant massage in the Western world

In Eurocentric cultures, infant massage is only recently being discovered and researched. In the United States, for example, massage therapy schools are beginning to teach infant massage. Infant massage therapists have founded a national organization of approximately 4,000 therapists, and those therapists in turn are setting up institutes to teach parents infant massage. The techniques they use are based primarily on the teachings of two massage therapists who trained in India (Amelia Auckett who published a book on infant massage in 1981 and Vimala Schneider McClure who published a similar book on infant massage in 1989).

Although these infant massage training groups are located now in most parts of the United States, very little research has been conducted on the use of infant massage with healthy infants. Working with healthy infants, infant massage training groups report that massage:

* Facilitates the parent-infant bonding process in the development of warm, positive relationships;
* Reduces stress responses to painful procedures such as inoculations;
* Reduces pain associated with teething and constipation;
* Reduces colic;
* Helps induce sleep; and
* Makes parents "feel good" while they are massaging their infants.

They report that infants who are blind and/or deaf become more aware of their bodies, and that infants born prematurely and infants with cerebral palsy also benefit by more organized motor activity.

Massage therapy with preterm infants

Most of the data on the positive effects of infant massage comes from studies on preterm infants. Most of these investigators reported greater weight gain and better performance on developmental tasks for the preterm infants receiving massage therapy.

Interestingly, those who did not report significant weight gain among massaged infants used a light stroking procedure, which we have since found is aversive to babies, probably because it is experienced as a tickle stimulus.

One of the studies used in this meta-analysis was conducted in our lab starting in 1984. The massage sessions were comprised of 3 five-minute phases. During the first and third phases, tactile stimulation was given. The newborn was placed in a prone position and given moderate pressure stroking of the head and face region, neck and shoulders, back, legs and arms for five one-minute segments. The Swedish-like massage was given because, as already noted, infants preferred some degree of pressure, probably because the light stroking was experienced as a tickle stimulus. 

The results of this study (published in Pediatrics in 1986) suggested that:

• The massaged infants gained 47 percent more weight, even though the groups did not differ in calorie intake;
• The massaged infants were awake and active a greater percentage of the observation time (much to our surprise, since we had expected that the massage would stimulate a soporific state and greater sleep time, leading to weight gain via lesser energy expenditure and calories);
• The massaged infants showed better performance on the Brazelton Scale on habituation, orientation, motor activity and regulation of state behavior;
• The massaged infants were hospitalized, on average, six fewer days than the control infants, yielding a savings in hospital costs of approximately $3,000 per infant.

Depressed mothers massaging their infants

Because we need a cost effective way to deliver massage therapy to infants, and because parents as massage therapists may benefit themselves from giving massage, and because the massage experience may improve the parent-infant relationship, in our studies we are increasingly teaching parents to administer massage therapy. In a study currently underway, we are teaching mothers who are depressed to massage their infants. We want to examine the effects of the massage therapy on the infants’ disorganized interaction behavior and their disturbed sleep patterns.

Adolescent mothers who have high Beck Depression Inventory scores are recruited for the study shortly after their infants are born. For this study we have asked the depressed mothers to perform a 15-minute massage daily for a two-week period. Preliminary results suggest the following:

• Infants’ drowsiness and quiet sleep increased immediately following the massage, and activity decreased, as might be expected;
• The infants’ latency to sleep was shorter following the massage therapy study (by the end of the two-week period the latency to sleep decreased from 22 to 9 minutes);
• The infants showed increased vocalizations, decreased restlessness and improved affect during mother-infant play interactions, and the mother’s play behavior became more age-appropriate;
• The infants’ fussiness decreased after the two-week period; and
• The infants’ depressed mothers perceived their “depressed” infants as being easier to soothe.

These data on decreased fussiness and more organized sleep suggested that we should conduct studies having parents massage their colicky infants and their infants with sleep disturbances. Thus, we are using the same model for those groups.

Grandparent volunteers as massage therapists

“Grandparent” volunteers offer another cost-effective way of delivering massage therapy to infants. (Our volunteers are not biological grandparents of the children, but simply retired people who would rather be called “grandparent volunteers” than “elderly volunteers” or “senior citizens.”) They belong to an organization of volunteers and have had many years of experience with young children. In an ongoing study, grandparent volunteers are being trained to massage children who have been neglected and/or abused, physically and sexually, and are now living in a shelter.

The study is designed to measure the effects of massage therapy on both the children and the volunteer grandparents of their giving the massage. (The elderly, like young children, experience failure to thrive, probably secondary to touch deprivation.) Our objective is to reduce both the grandparents’ touch deprivation and the infants’ touch deprivation, as well to reduce any touch aversions the infants might retain from having been sexually or physically abused.

The infants in this study ranged in age from three to 18 months. Since the grandparent volunteers were their primary caregivers in the shelter for the morning hours, the massage therapy sessions were a structured program integrated into the infants’ daily caregiving routine. The preliminary results suggest the following results for the infants:

• Drowsiness and quiet sleep increased and activity decreased following the massage;
• After one month of massage therapy, alertness and tracking behaviors increased; and
• Behavioral observations suggested increased activity, sociability and soothability.

For the volunteer grandparent massage therapists, a preliminary analysis of the data suggested that:

• The grandparent volunteers reported less anxiety and fewer symptoms of depression and an improved mood after receiving the massage;
• Their stress levels decreased;
• Their lifestyle improved, with more social contacts, fewer trips to the doctor’s office and fewer cups of coffee; and
• They reported improved self-esteem.

These effects appeared to be greater for the grandparents following a month of providing the infants with massage than they were following a month of receiving their own massages. These data suggest the power of massage therapy not only for the infants but for the adults who are massaging the infants, making it possible to cost effectively provide infants with massage therapy.

We have since discovered many other groups of infants who might benefit from massage therapy, such as those with cancer and spina bifida, as well as adults with different medical conditions that could improve from providing the therapy. The benefits of massage with normal infants, however, should not be overlooked, as often happens when so many infants have clinical problems needing treatment. Images of infants in Romanian orphanages remind us that children need physical contact for normal growth and development. Our culture’s increasing restrictions on touching children (because of concerns about potential child abuse) may have severe consequences. In cultures and parts of the world without touch taboos, infants thrive (as do their parents) on this pleasurable physical contact.

For more information contact Tiffany Field, Ph.D., Director, Touch Research Institute, University of Miami School of Medicine, P.O. Box 016820, Miami, Florida 33101. TOP

The Benefits of Massage for Mother and Baby
by Chris Prince, CMT, M.A

Gone are the days of the “massage parlor” mentality when referring to this wonderful form of healing arts. Massage is coming into the mainstream. Health experts are finding through research the many benefits of massage. The queen of touch research is Tiffany Field, Ph.D. Dr. Field is arguably responsible for more clinical research on touch and massage therapy than anyone. She receives a lot of funding for her research, but Johnson & Johnson’sTM is her largest supporter in helping her establish the Touch Research Institute of the University of Miami. Dr. Fields was also consulted for the article, “The Magic of Touch: Massage's Healing Powers Make It Serious Medicine,” in Life magazine (August 1997).

Through Dr. Field’s research, studies reveal that massage benefits all people from infants to the elderly. This article will address the first time expectant couple and how massage can help them and their baby ease into the natural process of birth.

Massage helps the expectant mother by easing the load on the heart and keeping the blood pressure in check, improving the lymphatic and circulatory systems to help control the onslaught of varicose veins, and relieving depression or anxiety caused by hormonal changes. Massage remedies many of the normal discomforts experienced during pregnancy such as backaches, stiff neck, leg cramps, headaches, edema, round ligament pain, sciatica, and swollen ankles and feet. Benefits of massage for the pregnant woman include increased blood circulation, which provides more oxygen and nutrients to both mother and fetus.

This means greater vitality for the mother and better nourishment for the unborn child. Massage stimulates glandular secretions which help to stabilize hormone levels. It also soothes and relaxes the nervous system by releasing endorphins into the mother’s body. As a result, the mommy-to-be will go to sleep more easily and more deeply. The overall well-being is improved. Massage during pregnancy is of the utmost importance and very beneficial for the mother and for the fetus.

Speaking of the fetus, once your baby arrives, he or she will continue to benefit from regular massage. From the moment of birth, the new baby needs gentle touches, soothing voices, and a calm environment. Touch is a powerful sense we are born with and need until we die. More than food the baby will want the warm touch of its care givers. In one research study, baby monkeys separated from their mothers preferred to cling to a wire form with fake fur instead of eating.

When her daughter was born a month premature Dr. Field found herself stroking her baby. In 1985, Dr. Field divided a sample of forty healthy "preemies" in a neonatal intensive care unit into stimulation and control groups to test the impact of massage. The results of the massage group were a 47 percent weight gain, greater responsiveness, and a 6-day earlier discharge from the hospital at a cost savings ($3,000 per baby, $10,000 in today’s dollars). Follow-up studies eight months later showed a continued advantage in weight as well as in mental and motor development. Comparable results also have appeared in studies with cocaine-exposed and HIV-exposed newborns. Another group, full-term infants of depressed mothers, experienced greater daily weight gain, better sleep habits, less fussiness, and overall behavior improvement. As you can see, massaging your infant can relieve a multitude of discomforts.

Finally, massaging your infant is a great way to bond with your angel and a great way for the new father to learn to touch his baby in a comforting, nurturing, loving way.

Dad can benefit by receiving a massage or by giving the “gift” of massage to his partner. Daddy-to-be has worries that may be overlooked such as finances, his performance during labor, and the health of his future child, just to name a few. Everyone is so busy focusing on the mother that the expectant partner fades into the background. Receiving massage can help relieve his stress and help him relax.

The expectant father can also benefit from giving his partner a loving massage. It will help him feel a part of the pregnancy when he can touch his partner in a comforting way. Massaging his partner is a way for him to acknowledge her discomfort and to help her feel better. It is also a way for him to get used to touching his pregnant partner’s pregnant body. Some men do not really touch their partner during the nine months, (sex is one thing, touch is another), and then they find themselves in the birthing room feeling very inadequate about their partner’s body and may find themselves unable to do anything more than rub her back to the point of irritation!

Massaging his partner during the pregnancy helps him to learn that there are other regions of the body that respond to massage. During labor, the mother may tire of having counter pressure to her back but she may enjoy her hands or feet being massaged in between contractions. As you can see, the benefits of massage are vast, and who needs massage more than the expectant parents-to-be?

When receiving massage during pregnancy, it is important to find a Certified Massage Therapist who is also certified in pregnancy massage. A therapist certified in working with pregnant clients has furthered their knowledge of massage by studying the techniques applied to pregnant women and has studied in-depth the process of pregnancy, labor, birth, and the postpartum period.

There are many factors to be considered before massaging expectant women and a pregnancy massage therapist will know what to look for. Massage is a wonderful way for the new family to bond!

Editorial provided by Chris Prince, CMT, MA. TOP

The Power of Touch

Research Quantifies Clinical Benefits of Massage for Infants and Children - Pediatricians Encouraged to Tap the Power of Touch -
09:27 a.m. Nov 04, 1997 Eastern

NEW ORLEANS, Nov. 3 /PRNewswire/

For the first time, the nation's pediatricians received a comprehensive look at research showing the health benefits of touch therapy, or massage. Clinical studies presented this week at a plenary session of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) annual meeting found that touch therapy can help premature newborns gain weight faster, asthmatic children improve breathing function, diabetic children comply with treatment, and sleepless babies fall asleep with less trouble.

"Our research suggests that touch is as important to infants and children as eating and sleeping," said Tiffany Field, Ph.D., director and founder of the Touch Research Institutes at the University of Miami School of Medicine (UMSM) and Nova Southeastern University, and professor in the department of pediatrics, psychology and psychiatry at UMSM. "Touch therapy triggers many physiological changes that help infants and children grow and develop. For example, massage can stimulate nerves in the brain which facilitate food absorption, resulting in faster weight gain. It also lowers levels of stress hormones, resulting in improved immune function."

Touch therapy involves gentle stroking and kneading by a parent or caregiver on three regions of a child's body -- the face, neck, head and shoulders; the arms and hands; and the back, legs and feet. It also can incorporate flexing and extension of the arms and legs. Pediatricians, obstetricians and other healthcare professionals can teach parents the simple techniques of touch therapy.

"As pediatricians and parents, it's important that we recognize the advantages of touch therapy and use this basic, effective tool as part of pediatric care of diverse ailments," said Lawrence Schachner, M.D., professor, department of pediatrics and department of dermatology and cutaneous surgery, University of Miami School of Medicine. "Clinical research shows that touch therapy can benefit infants and children studied, including children with skin disorders such as eczema. It may furthermore improve parent-baby interaction."

The Benefits of Touch Therapy

Researchers at the Touch Research Institutes have completed controlled clinical studies on a number of special populations of infants and children.

Results include:

• Weight gain: premature infants and cocaine-exposed infants gained more weight (47 percent and 28 percent more, respectively) than infants receiving similar volume and caloric intake in the non-massaged control groups. In the massaged premature infants, weight gain was associated with discharge from the hospital six days earlier than the non-massaged infants, resulting in a $10,000 (adjusted for inflation) cost savings per infant.
• Reduced anxiety and improved behavior: asthmatic children, diabetic children, cocaine-exposed infants, premature newborns, and sleepless infants who were massaged had decreased levels of the stress hormone cortisol, and were observed to have fewer temperamental outbursts and less stressful fidgeting.
• Improved motor development: premature newborns and cocaine-exposed infants, when massaged, scored higher on the Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale -- specifically in the areas of habituation, orientation and motor and sensory development -- than did the non-massaged control group.
• Improved pulmonary functions and peak air flow: massaged children with mild-to-severe asthma demonstrated an enhanced ability (in volume and flow rate) to exhale, compared with children who were not massaged.
• Improved adherence to treatment regimens: youngsters with juvenile diabetes who received massage therapy showed an improved compliance with their insulin and food regulation, compared with children who were not massaged. Average blood glucose levels among the massaged children dropped from 159 on the first day of the study to 118 on the last day (normal range is 70 to 120).

Data from these recently completed studies offer a clear view of the observable and measurable outcomes of infant and child massage. Additional studies are underway to examine the effects of massage on a broad range of patients, and to further define the ways touch therapy contributes to the treatment of childhood anxiety, behavioral disorders and physical ailments.

The first of the Touch Research Institutes (TRI) was established in 1992 at the University of Miami School of Medicine, and in 1997 the second institute was founded at Nova Southeastern University in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. The TRI are the only centers in the world devoted solely to the study of touch and its application in science and medicine. The TRI receive support from federal sources including the National Institutes of Health, companies such as Johnson & Johnson, and other organizations. Under the direction of Tiffany Field, Ph.D., the TRI work with a distinguished team of researchers representing Duke, Harvard, Princeton, McGill, University of Maryland and other universities to better define how touch promotes health and contributes to the treatment of disease. SOURCE Touch Research Institutes
Copyright 1997, PR Newswire TOP

Touch Our Children, Teach Our Children
By Karrie Osborn
 
Children. They are our most precious gifts, yet so many are not given the love and compassion that is their birthright. It’s hard to imagine denying a young life the comfort of touch, but we see it every day. From those abandoned with AIDS on the streets of Africa to the cases of abuse we see on our local news each evening, children are suffering worldwide without the comfort of touch.

As a caring parent, you know touch is the tool of love. But as a massage therapist, you know more than most how important touch can be to the developmentally and physically disabled, to the abused, to the abandoned and unloved, to the socially challenged, to the scared and scarred and, of course, to the average, healthy child. It’s a simple message with resounding impact: touch heals.

Tiffany Field, Ph.D., the undisputed expert in the field of touch and children from the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami, has devoted the majority of her research to this very area. Her studies on massage and preterm infants are renowned for opening the door to massage as a researchable, therapeutic tool for health, but her other work with children has reminded us just how important the simplest touch can be. Her group continues to lead the way in new avenues of research.

And it’s not just Swedish massage that’s making a difference with children. All sorts of bodywork therapies are having an impact. Within these pages we’ve talked in the past about energy work and its effects on the childhood disorder of craniosynostosis, we’ve witnessed the comfort massage brings to terminally ill children and we recently explored how a form of reiki helped a young cerebral palsy client.

Fortunately, more is being tried every day. Just as you’ll see in this issue’s article on Jonathan Clark and his work with autism or Jeff Bisdee’s efforts to bring Watsu into the therapeutic mainstream at his clinic, therapists are not afraid to match therapy with condition to find a suitable and healthful outcome.

As mentioned earlier, we’re not just talking about children with physical and emotional challenges. We’re also talking about the benefits of touch on the healthy child. We know touch can create stronger bonds between parent and child, and that without it, children fail to thrive.

We also know, however, touch has become virtually taboo in our American schools. Teachers are afraid to touch students, to give a comforting pat on the back, or a hug when the child is distressed, for fear of how it will be interpreted. Touch, unfortunately, can be abused and has, and the result is a society where fathers are even afraid to give their young daughters a bath. How can we counteract this dilemma? Teach and practice healthy touch.

Around the world, we are seeing programs where children learn to massage each other in preschool, we are seeing teens prone to violence take another path through healthy touch and we need only take a look at indigenous cultures to see how touch can be revered and respected within the family.

There is so much more to learn and so much more to do; it’s obvious the surface has only been scratched. We know touch is an incredible thing. How will you let it impact your world and your clients’ world? What correlations have you made in your work with children?

Tiffany Field, Ph.D., has been studying and writing about early child development for over 20 years, focusing especially on infants' first contact with their parents and the outside world. TOP

HANDS-ON HEALING
New medical research suggests that massage can help anyone--from premature babies to people with AIDS
Excerpts from article of above title appearing in Massage Bodywork Quarterly, Fall, 1994

The premature baby is HIV exposed and the therapist is Frank Scafidi. It was here, in the NICU, eight years ago that he participated in breakthrough research, directed by Tiffany Field, Ph.D., on the effects of touch on human physiology. In 1986, in the esteemed medical journal Pediatrics, Field, assisted by Scafidi and six others, published her findings that fifteen minutes of "tactile/kinesthetic stimulation"--massage, in lay terms--done three times daily for ten days dramatically aided premature babies' growth; the babies gained 47 percent more weight and went home six days earlier than the norm, saving $3,000 per baby in hospital costs. At eight to twelve months, with no further massages, these babies continued to show significant advantages in weight gain and mental and motor development over their untreated peers.

Fields' remarkable findings opened up a new line of investigation. In May 1992, Touch Research Institute (TRI), the world's first scientific facility devoted to the study of touch, was officially launched at the University of Miami's School of Medicine, with Tiffany Field as its director. Its forty staff members--physicians, psychologists, and massage therapists, along with pre-med and psychology graduate students--are studying the effect of touch in treating ailments ranging from AIDS, cancer, diabetes and asthma to depression, eating disorders, and even daily mental inefficiency. Cross-university faculty collaborators include luminaries like pediatrician T. Berry Brazelton and anthropologist, Ashley Montagu, author of Touching, the seminal work on the topic.

TRI generates facts and figures that demonstrate how physical contact, whether professional or affectional, methodological or causual, alters mood, behavior, physiology, and biochemistry.

With human babies, TRI has found that massage increases vagal activity (the vagus nerve, one of ten cranial nerves, affects the secretion of food-absorption hormones, as well as heart rate and respiration). Field suggests other long-term benefits for massaged babies. "After ten days of brief massages, the preemies' behavior was more organized and they were more responsive," she says.

This study brought Field to the attention of Jim Burke, then CEO of Johnson & Johnson (now chairman of Partnership for a Drug-Free America), who fervently believes that touch, as a physical correlate of love, is a key to health. Field was invited to the company's second round table on touch, along with Brazelton and Schanberg. At Burke's recommendation, Johnson & Johnson ended up contributing $250,000 to launch the Institute; federal, corporate, and foundation grants now provide its $1 million annual budget.
Her success with the initial preemie massage study prompted Field to do a study with cocaine exposed infants. Massage alleviated the irritability and disorganized behavior--limbs flailing rather than bicycling--that drug babies typically exhibit.

If massage worked with troubled infants, why not with older children? Field's second major line of research began in the children's psychiatric unit with depressed and "conduct disorder" patients. After a series of massages, patients not only felt less anxious and slept better, says Field, but "biochemicals associated with anxiety--cortisol and norepinephrine--decreased."

This finding spurred new studies of other stress-related ailments. Field clicks through crayon drawings of faceless, puny people made by children with post-traumatic stress syndrome in the wake of Hurricane Andrew After a month of thrice-weekly massages, the children drew smiling people with balloons and birds. Over the same month, unmassagged children enlarged their crayoned people and were able to add a few features, but the differences, scored methodically, were apparent, says Field.

Massage treatments also helped asthma sufferers breath better. Eating-disorder patients' body images improved, while their destructive eating behavior declined by two-thirds as measured on the eating Disorder Inventory. Studies have just begun on another group with eroded self-images--abused women.

After stress-related maladies, Field confronted immune disorders. Her findings in one study of HIV-positive men are tantalizing. After forty-five-minute daily massages five days a week for a month, says Field, "their anxiety and stress pressures decreased while simultaneously their levels of serotonin and their natural killer (NK) cells--the first line of defense in the immune system--increased." Although massage's long-term effects on life expectancy are not yet known, Field surmises the immune boost will help ward off infections that normally threaten a weakened system

Encouraged by the HIV findings, TRI has begun studies on children with cancer, another disease involving the immune system. And because a serotonin-like substance is the primary ingredient in certain painkillers, massage may offset the need for addictive pain medications. Chronic-pain patients especially vulnerable to opiates, like children with cancer or arthritis, are now in TRI massage studies on pain. Diabetics may also benefit from a potential increase in insulin (related to increased vagal activity) following massage, another phenomenon under scrutiny at the Institute.

The flurry of activity at TRI is beginning to intrigue its neighbors at the hospital. After field's slide show, TRI's resident massage therapist, Eli Muller, appears to lead a visit to the burn center, where Michael Peck, M.D., has requested a massage study on bun victims.

Peck notes, "Anxiety seems to be a major component of pain that massage would alleviate." Moreover, he says, "We try to teach patients as they recover to focus on what's still well. Hands-on attention to uninjured areas would assist that." And, he suggests, massage may diminish the intense itching of healing by increasing circulation. A TRI study is now in motion.

Indicative of the new openness to massage in medicine, Harvard Medical School recently added an alternative-medicine course that includes a segment on massage. But massage is not new to medicine. About two thousand years ago, Hippocrates declared "rubbing" to be his favorite spoke on the wheel of health essentials. Since then, it has gone in and out of respectability. In a number of European countries, health insurance still pays for massage. And in the U.S. until the fifties, when a combination of technology and dubious massage practices obscured it, massage was often part of medical and nursing training.

Tiffany Field predicts that nurses will bring back massage, and they have begun to do that. In 1992, the National Association of Nurse Massage Therapists was officially recognized by the 350,000 member National Federation for Specialty Nursing Organizations.

Even healthy people benefit from a little tactile attention. Field believes touch should be a part of everyday life to maintain health and she has research to support that. After five weeks of two such fifteen-minute chair massages weekly, office workers' reports of less fatigue and clearer thinking were consistent with changes in EEG brain-wave measurements. They finished computation tests in half as much time with half as many errors as pre-experiment. And ordinary Americans are beginning to catch on.

In the TRI Preschool, a young father massages his toddler daughter. TRI studies show that massaged toddlers play and sleep better. Field has also done research indicating that children are better behaved and more productive, given regular casual touch. She wants to see informed touch as part of the school day and envisions children during gym class in massage trains, hand to shoulders.

Such a reciprocal arrangement is optimal, according to TRI's "grandparent" study. Massage practitioners have long sensed a subtle "energy" interchange between client and masseuse. TRI has substantiated that intuition, finding that in some areas senior citizens actually gained more from giving massages to abused children than from getting massages. The adults' stress-hormone levels went down; they made fewer doctors' visits, more social calls, and experienced less depression.

In human physiology, then, it may be as beneficial to stroke as to be stroked. And, perhaps, metaphysically as well as physically, one cannot touch without simultaneously being touched. Finally, TRI, with all its scientific and clinical apparatus, is a simple confirmation of human interrelatedness and the affectionate impulse to touch. TOP

Touch Therapy 
Kathleen Brinkman, RN, MSN 
University Affiliated Cincinnati Center for Developmental Disorders
Cincinnati, Ohio 

Touch is our first means of communication as infants.  It may be the last way we communicate at life’s end.  Between exist many moments where touch with loving intention creates a bridge from one person to the other.  The purpose of this presentation and discussion is to introduce this concept as another way for parents and caregivers to be present to their children.

Research supports the value of touch and massage as one way to enhance well-being at any age or health status.  Research also show that there are often benefits for the person offering touch. Tiffany Field, Ph.D., Director of the Touch Research Institute, University of Miami, School of Medicine, has been engaged in over 30 studies relating to touch and massage.  Areas of study include; newborns, infants, children, adolescents, adults, and the elderly.  Studies have been done with children who have a diagnosis of autism, cystic fibrosis, oncology, spinal cord injuries, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy and those born prematurely.

One form of touch, therapeutic massage, offers benefits to all body systems including; circulatory, respiratory, digestive, and the central nervous system.  The International Association of Infant Massage provides training in a protocol for infants.  The American Massage Therapy Association offers information on professional massage for adults.  Resources for families are available through books and videos at local libraries or bookstores.

This presenter shares the belief that the intention of the person offering touch and/or massage is of great importance.  For parents, touching their children is a daily experience.  Setting aside a regular time, bringing one’s loving attention to focus on the child and being responsive to their cues, verbal or nonverbal, makes the difference.  Different techniques may address specific physiological concerns.  A respectful, gentle touch will enhance the well-being of both parent and child.

Parent concerns identified in the group discussion included; oral sensitivity, language delays, and constipation.  For future presentations or parent resource libraries some specific suggestions could be developed.  A bibliography/resource list was shared with parents and is included.  The presenter would be glad to discuss this further with interested parents. TOP