Outcomes of a Massage Intervention on Teen Mothers, Research Paper Example

Article Summary

The pilot study is created by the authors to measure the positive effects of infant massage intervention on the attitudes of adolescent mothers and their perception towards their child. Presuming that physical contact with the infant would allow teenage mothers to reduce stress and care for the needs of the baby, the twenty-five African American mothers, at the mean age of 16.3 were placed into either a control or an intervention group. Reliable data was only obtained of 15 mothers, as some of the participants were not contactable on the phone, or were transferred to a different high school. The assessments were conducted approximately 4 weeks after giving birth, and the massage sessions were 30 minute long.

The researchers aim to utilize the knowledge gained to develop, execute and appraise the concept of infant massage intervention and its benefits for the mother. To answer the research problem, the authors selected twenty-five African American adolescent mothers whose age ranged from 14 years to 18 years. They were then randomly assigned to two groups: one group would receive instruction and participate on the massage intervention while the other group did not perform any massage intervention. They utilized several methods such as the Likert scale to examine the mothers’ perception of their infant and their stress level from parenting while the Beck Depression Inventory II was utilized to determine the presence of depression.

After treating their data, the researchers surmised that there was a significant difference between the two groups in their feelings about physical contact. Those in the intervention group indicated positive feelings and exhibited a comfortable and relaxed attitude as compared to those in the control group. Further, there was no significant difference between the two groups in maternal confidence or stress from parenting. The intervention group (mothers who trained and participated in infant massage) had significantly lower scores in maternal depression compared to the control group.

 Reflection and critique

Due to the relatively small sample size of the study and the fact that the population group was composed of urban African-American adolescents, the sample group is very limited, and it cannot be used to create generalized assumptions. The conditions of the study and the length of time allotted for observation may be too short which all affects the validity of the results. Further, the questionnaires were based on self-reports and a scaling system, and they only covered some aspects of motherhood, such as how comfortable the mother is with physical contact with the child and psychological well-being. However, the size of the study did not allow the research to be suitable for pointing out patterns. The improvement of mood and relationships might have been a result of regular contact with training and intervention staff, as activities and getting out of the house might have a positive psychological effect by itself.

The design of the study also has its limitations as measures utilized were self-reports of the mothers and potential response bias should be considered as well. The results, therefore, may not reflect the long term results, and there might be other aspects to take into consideration. For example, when the infant grows, they would have different needs, which the mother would still be unable to cope. Indeed, intervention needs to be designed to support teenage mothers in every aspect of caring for a child; housing, schooling and relationship problems would have to be dealt with, in order to preserve the positive effects of learning more about infants. In the future, further studies should be completed in order to identify the groups of mothers that can benefit the most from the intervention and training.

The authors have pointed out that further studies are needed to evaluate long term effects and include a larger, more diverse sample; the pilot study still provides researchers with data regarding the use of infant massage.

The study should be reviewed by health care professionals and teenage parents’ intervention programs’ leaders, and considering the low cost of the training provided, this might be a complementary therapy to psychological treatments, as a result of post-natal depression.

Further research should include more variables, regarding the housing status of the mother, relationships with teachers, education and psychological background.