Massage used in post-delivery care on neonatal body temperature

Doctors at the at Kathmandu Maternity Hospital recently demonstrated that massage may play a valuable role in helping maintain babies body temperatures immediately after birth. The researchers first carried out a prospective observational study of post-delivery care and neonatal body temperature and then followed it with a randomised controlled intervention study using three simple methods used to help maintain the babies’ body temperatures.
Five hundred infants were monitored in the initial observation study and three hundred in the intervention study. In the observation study, 85% of infants had temperatures less than 36 degrees C at 2 hours following the birth and nearly 50% still had temperatures less than 36 degrees C at 24 hours after the birth.
Most of the infants who were cold after 24 hours had initially become cold at the time of delivery (incredibly, only seven infants had been both well dried and wrapped). In the intervention study, all infants were dried and wrapped before random assignment to one of the three methods: the "kangaroo" method, the traditional "oil massage" or a "plastic swaddler". All three methods were found to be equally effective. Overall, 38% of the infants had temperatures less than 36 degrees C at 2 hours and less than 18% ( at 24 hours.