Touch Therapy

1986

Tiffany Field (b. 1941)

Humans have been touching each other for as long as there have been humans. Touch was an essential part of ancient healing practices, as anthropologist Ashley Montagu showed in his landmark book Touching: The Human Significance of the Skin (1971). For centuries in medieval Europe, it was believed that the touch of the monarch, the royal touch, could bring healing to the sick. But it was not until recently that scientific studies of touch have begun to show us its importance for our health and our survival.

When psychologist Tiffany Field’s first child was born prematurely, she found that stroking her baby was beneficial to her daughter’s growth and development. Curious, she began to research the effect of touch, first on premature infants and then on people suffering from a variety of illnesses. Her first major study of the effect of touch on preterm infants, published in 1986, found that the massaged infants averaged a 47 percent weight gain. In addition, they were more active and alert when awake and demonstrated a greater range of behaviors than neonates who were not massaged. Surprised, she continued this research, and what she found has revolutionized our understanding of the power of touch.

In 1982 the common hospital practice in Western societies was to place premature infants in an incubator and, apart from basic care, leave them alone. It was thought that touch irritated or overstimulated them. Field’s observation of her child’s growth and subsequent research changed all that. In one of her first studies, Field and her colleagues found that, when a premature infant is gently massaged on the back or its limbs for fifteen minutes three times a day, the infant gains weight almost 50 percent faster than infants who are not massaged; this was true even though the infants did not receive more food than the others. This initial research and other studies that followed also showed a beneficial effect for the development of the nervous system, and these gains were maintained. This work led to an important change in hospital practice: now parents are encouraged to hold and massage both their premature and normal-term infants.

Since this early research, therapeutic touch has been shown to improve attention, relieve depression, reduce pain, and even improve immune functioning in infants and adults. It is clear that touch is so critical that without it our survival may be in doubt.

SEE ALSO (Surrogate) Mother Love (1958), Attachment Theory (1969), The Strange Situation (1969)

Studies by psychologist Tiffany Field have shown that massage promotes beneficial effects for infants, including weight gain, improved immune functioning, and increased physical activity.