{"doi":"10.1002/imhj.22095","title":"Infant massage as a stress management technique for parents of hospitalized extremely preterm infants","abstract":"Mothers of infants born extremely preterm requiring prolonged medical intervention in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) are at high risk of developing stress. Parent-administered infant massage is a well-established, safe intervention for preterm infants with many developmental benefits, but the published literature has mostly examined its impact on infants and parents through self-reported or observational measures of stress. The aim of this study was to measure salivary cortisol, a biomarker for stress, in extremely preterm infants and their mothers immediately pre and post parent-administered infant massage in order to detect potential changes in physiologic stress. Twenty-two mother-infant dyads completed massage education with a physical or occupational therapist. All dyads provided salivary cortisol samples via buccal swab immediately pre- and post-massage at the second session. Of mothers determined to be \"cortisol responders\" (15/22), salivary cortisol levels were lower after massage (pre-minus post-level: -26.47 ng/dL, [CI = -4.40, -48.53], p = .016, paired t-test). Our primary findings include a clinically significant decrease (as measured by percent change) in maternal cortisol levels immediately post parent-administered massage, indicating decreased physiological stress. Integration of infant massage into NICU clinical practice may support maternal mental health, but further powered studies are necessary to confirm findings.","journal":"Infant Mental Health Journal","year":2023,"id":352180,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":9,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9534,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1097725,"name":"Rachel Silver","orcid":"0000-0003-1608-7561","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1097726,"name":"Lauren Quinn","orcid":"0000-0002-5438-3364","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":616213,"name":"Stacey C. Dusing","orcid":"0000-0003-3847-3893","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":275849,"name":"T. Michael O’Shea","orcid":"0000-0001-6692-911X","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1097724,"name":"Dana B. McCarty","orcid":"0000-0001-6499-8197","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":74,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:12:50.107998Z","pmid":"38140832","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}