Children's Massage can Decrease Aggression

In a recent research article published in Acta Paediatrica, research confirms that 5 to 10 minutes a day of Peaceful Touch practice significantly decreases aggression in children!

Photo: Peaceful Touch®

Aim: To evaluate the effects of massage in 4- to 5-year-old children with aggression and deviant behaviour at day-care centres.

Method: The children received daily massage in preschool at the midday rest (n = 60). The controlswere listening to a story (n = 50). The Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL) was used to rate thechildren’s behaviour by parents and staff before the treatment started, and after 3 and 6 months. Along-term evaluation was also carried out. It included all massaged children still in daycare after12 months (n = 34).

Results: Children with high scores of behaviour problems, receiving massage and/or extra attentionshowed significant decrease in aggression scores after 3 months, but after 6 months significantlylowered scores were only found in massage-treated deviant children. Parents of the children receivingmassage rated a significant decrease of somatic problems of their children. Staff rated that themassaged children’s social problems decreased, compared to the control children. Attention problems tended to decrease, especially at home. A continuous decrease in aggressive behaviourand somatic problems over a 12-month period was observed in the children receiving massage.

Conclusion: Daily touching by massage lasting for 5–10 min could be an easy and inexpensive way to decreaseaggression among preschool children.

source: Acta Paediatrica

New Study suggests fans reduce risk of SIDS

Simply turning on a fan in a sleeping baby's room can reduce the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome by 72 percent, a study says.

The study punctuates other findings that SIDS can be greatly reduced by changing a sleeping baby's environment, said the study's author, De-Kun Li, a reproductive and perinatal epidemiologist at Kaiser Permanente Research in Oakland, Calif. Li noted that a fan is an especially great benefit when there are other risk factors present such as an overheated room and soft bedding.

Li studied the cases of 185 babies who died from SIDS in California during a four-year period, and, through interviews with the mothers, compared their environmental circumstances to those of babies who did not die.

Li's study also found that simply having open windows reduces SIDS risk by 36 percent, even without a fan.

Li said it's unwise to depend on just one remedy, however.

Instead, do all the right things:

* Lay the infant on his or her back and make sure the room isn't overheated.

* Don't use soft bedding.

* Use a fan.

* Don't have the infant sleep with siblings or anyone else, except perhaps the parents.

SIDS is the leading cause of death among children from 1 to 12 months old, and the third leading cause of overall infant mortality in the U.S.

excerpted from Rocky Mountain News - October 7, 2008