Effect of touch therapy by mothers on weight gaining of preterm newborns

  Introduction: The effect of touch on growth of newborns has been achieved by educated staff, but touch therapy by mothers as the most important care provider for their infants, had not been focused in previous studies. The aim of this work was to study effect of touch therapy by mothers on weight gaining of preterm newborns.   Materials and Methods: In a randomized controlled trail and double blind study, 60 preterm newborns who discharged from neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) to home, randomly allocated to control and touch therapy group (30 newborns in each group). Touch therapy was educated to mother in a direct education, also with offering guide booklet to the mothers. Touch was provided for three 20 minute period per day, until term corrected age. Neonate weight in two groups was measured at the time of discharge and then at the term corrected age by the electronic weighing scale with an accuracy of ± 10 gr .   Results : In two groups, mean of age, kind of delivery, level of education, employment and socio-economic status in mothers, also weight, sex and other neonate characteristics had no statistical differences. At the term corrected age, interventional group showed a weight gain of 10 g/day (30%) more than control, which was statistically significant (31 g/day vs 21 g/day ) (P=0 . 04) .   Conclusion: An important aspect of this study is that all stimulations were provided by mothers which had positive impact for preterm newborns, So, education of touch therapy to mothers can be recommended before discharge of pre-term newborns.