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Clinical Practice Protocol of Creative Music Therapy for Preterm Infants and Their Parents in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
Published on: January 7, 2020
Massage therapy improves neurodevelopment outcome at two years corrected age for very low birth weight infants
Renato S Procianoy1, Eliane W Mendes, Rita C Silveira
1Department of Pediatrics, Medical School, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul and Newborn Section, Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. renatosp@terra.com.br <renatosp@terra.com.br>
Background:
Long term effects of massage therapy in very preterm newborns infants are still to be described. Few studies evaluated neurodevelopment just at six months, and included late preterm infants.
Objective:
To study the effect of massage therapy on neurodevelopment of very low birth weight infants at two years corrected age.
Study Design:
Newborns with birth weight between >or= 750 and
Results:
We followed 73 newborns (35 in Intervention Group, and 38 in Control Group). Both groups were similar in neonatal data. Growth at 2 years corrected age was similar in both groups. Intervention Group had borderline higher Psychomotor Development Index and significantly higher Mental Development Index scores than Control Group.
Conclusions:
We suggest that massage therapy by mothers combined to skin-to-skin care during neonatal hospital stay improves neurodevelopment outcome at 2 years corrected age.
