A pilot randomised controlled trial on the effectiveness of infant massage on the acceptance, commitment and awareness of influence in parents of babies with Down syndrome.

The study is small. Thirty-two parents were analysed, 16 in each group, and the authors name sample size as the main limitation and say the sample would need to be bigger before the results could be generalised. Both groups got better over the five weeks, including the parents who did no massage. The authors say the time between the two interviews, the growing relationship with the baby and the ongoing early intervention programme may all have contributed to that. Parents could not be blinded to whether they were massaging their baby, and the control group knew they would be given the course afterwards. The outcome came from what parents said in an interview, scored by raters, so parents' expectations could affect the scores. The main analysis was done only on the parents who completed both interviews, leaving out the three families who dropped out, two of them from the massage group. That can make an intervention look better than it is. The number of parents needed for the study was calculated from an effect size taken from this same group of families in an earlier study, and the interview's reliability figures also came from that earlier work rather than from this trial. Only one massage protocol was used, based on the International Association of Infant Massage programme, so nothing here says how a different protocol would perform. The group studied was narrow: parents had to be a couple, babies had to be between 4 and 8 months old, and families who had already done an infant massage course were excluded.

The research received no external funding and the authors declare no conflict of interest.

Do not read this as proof that infant massage changes how parents feel about their baby. This was a pilot with 16 parents per group, both groups improved without any massage, and the difference in awareness of influence was no longer significant once the three families who dropped out were added back in. The parents also knew which group they were in.