Book Description

The purpose of this research study was to examine the effects of infant massage on the interactions between high risk infants and their caregivers. A population of nine high risk infants who received infant massage was compared to 14 high risk infants who did not receive infant massage. Both groups received intensive home-based services for one year from a public health nurse in Marion county, Oregon. The data collected and analyzed included demographic information, specific risk and environmental factors that placed the population at high risk for developmental delays or sudden infant death, measures of the quality of the caregiving environment (HOME), measures of the quality of interactions between caregiver and infant (NCAST scales), and a follow-up interview of 10 caregivers to answer specific questions concerning the infant's development and the quality of services received in the home. This study was designed to answer the research question: what are the relationships between risk and environmental factors, quality of the caregiving environment, infant massage intervention and infant-caregiver interaction. Statistical analyses (Pearson r correlations and ANCOVA) tested three hypotheses. Risk variables and the quality of the caregiving environment appeared to be similar for both the treatment and control groups. Results supported the conclusions that there were negative relationships between risk and environmental variables and infant-caregiver interactions; and that the quality of the caregiving environment was positively related to the interactions of infants and caregivers. Finally, the results were suggestive of positive effects for massage treatment on the interactions of caregiver and infant during routine feeding situations. Caregivers reported many positive benefits from massage training and rated the in-home intervention very highly in a telephone interview.