• Elizabeth E Hathaway, Christina M Luberto, Lois H Bogenschutz, Sue Geiss, Rachel S Wasson, and Sian Cotton.
• Department of Family and Community Medicine, Division of Integrative Medicine, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Ohio, United States (Ms Hathaway).
• Glob Adv Health Med. 2015 Jul 1; 4 (4): 32-7.

BackgroundPain management is a frequent problem in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Few studies examining effects of integrative care therapies on pain-related outcomes in neonates have included physiological outcomes or investigated the use of such therapies in a practice-based setting.ObjectiveThe purpose of this practice-based retrospective study was to examine the associations between integrative care therapies, particularly massage and healing touch, and pain-related outcomes among hospitalized infants.MethodsWe conducted a retrospective review of a clinical database from a level III NICU regularly delivering integrative care therapies. Paired-samples t-tests were used to examine associations between integrative care therapies and 4 pre-post outcome measures: therapist-rated pain and presentation (ranging from asleep to agitated) and neonates' heart rate and oxygen saturation.ResultsOf 186 patients (M age=68 days), 58% were male and 67% were Caucasian. Sixty-two percent received both massage and healing touch; the remainder received a single therapy. From pre-post therapy, statistically significant changes were observed in infants' heart rate (M pre=156 vs M post=140 per minute; P<.001), oxygen saturation (M pre=95.0% vs.M post=97.4%; P<.001), and therapist-reported pain (M pre=2.8 vs M post=0.2; P<.001) and presentation (M pre=3.2 vs. M post=1.0; P<.001).ConclusionObserved improvements in pain-related outcomes suggest that massage and healing touch may be useful integrative therapies to consider as pain management options in the NICU.

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