PURPOSE
To investigate changes in mother's stress, degree of depression and level of milk secretion hormones when the mothers provided massage to their new born babies.
METHOD
The study was conducted with 65 women who had delivered at a convalescence institute in Incheon between Sep 25, 2003 and Feb 10, 2004. The mothers were assigned to a control group or an experimental group. Infants of mothers in the experimental group received massage from their mothers twice a day for 10 days beginning on the 4th day after delivery. The data were processed using chi square-test, paired t-test and repeated measures ANOVA using the SAS program.
RESULTS
The level of cortisol, a stress hormone and depression were significantly different between the two groups (p=0.01;p=0.02). While for plasma prolactin level, a milk secretion hormone, there was no significant difference(p=0.14).
CONCLUSIONS
When massage was provided to new-born babies the cortisol level of the mothers decreased significantly compared to the control group which did not receive the massage. As the level of depression of the control group declined as time passed while the experiment group showed no difference and there was no difference in the plasma prolactin level, further study is suggested.
