Predicting which preterm infants benefit most from massage therapy

Researchers at the Department of Paediatrics, University of Miami School of Medicine studied ninety-three preterm infants; the mean gestational age of the infants was 30 weeks; the mean birth weight, 1204 g, and mean duration in the intensive care was 15 days. All of the babies were randomly assigned to either a massage therapy group or a control group as soon as they were considered medically stable.
The fifty babies in the treatment group received three daily 15-minute massages for 10 days. The massage therapy infants gained significantly more weight per day than the infants in the control group (32grams compared to 29 grams). All of the babies in the treatment and control groups were divided into high and low weight gainers based on the average weight gain for the control group. Seventy per cent of the massage therapy infants were classified as high weight gainers whereas only forty per cent of the control infants were classified as high weight gainers.
A closer inspection of the records revealed that the babies who needed the most help (ie. those infants who had experienced more complications before the study began) actually benefited more from the massage therapy. Using those parametres, the researchers accurately predicted that seventy eight per cent of the infants would benefit significantly from the massage therapy. Thus, they concluded from the results, that it was possible to to identify those infants who would benefit most from future massage therapy programs.