Synopsis: 11

NEONATAL MASSAGE IN MANAGING NEONATAL PAIN

Dr. Asir John Samuel

Professor

Maharishi Markandeshwar Institute of Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Haryana

Neonatal Pain is under treated because neonates are unable to express their pain and discomfort as the adults do. Due to advancement in neonatal care, mortality rate among preterm neonates born less than 28 weeks of gestation are decreasing. Increasing survival rate, make preterm neonate as a victim of painful neonatal procedures. Neonates are exposed to more than 22 painful procedures / day during first 2 weeks of neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) stay. Most of these painful procedures are left untreated and almost 80% neonates lack neonatal pain management. Untreated repetitive and prolonged neonatal pain have poor neurodevelopmental during later part of their life.

Pharmacological neonatal pain management are less advocated due to the concern over the controversies regarding the safety of neonatal pain management drugs. Hence, non-pharmacological neonatal pain management strategies are safe, efficient and only hope to manage neonatal pain. Massage therapy is one of non-pharmacological neonatal pain management strategy in managing neonatal pain by activating descending pain suppression pathway. Massage therapy add approximately 6 to 8 g weight gain in addition to regular daily weight gain and reduce pain. Hence, massage therapy could be administered to the neonates 10 minutes before the painful neonatal procedures. Massage administration to the neonates assumed to heighten parasympathetic and vagal activity, and might help to provide more stable organized physiological state. This would minimize the level of pain perceived by the neonates and thereby could prevent deterioration in neurodevelopment. Practical demonstration of massage technique will be discussed in the conference and might through light to these unexplored neonatal pain management techniques in NICUs.