Physical Stimulation for Hiperbilirubin

Abstract

Exercise is a natural way for caregivers to improve health, cardiovascular status, increases bone mineralization, nutrition intake and body weight in neonates. We aimed to investigate the effects of physical stimulation on neonates with jaundice who are also receiving phototherapy.Full term neonates with jaundice, admitted for phototherapy at a rural hospital. The design study is quasi eksperiment pretest-posttest design with control group, analysis use paired t test and chi-square test. The medical information for each neonate, including total feeding amount, body weight, defecation frequency, and icteric grade was collected an compared between two groups. A total of 34 patients were enrolled in the study. This included 17 neonates in the control group and 17 in the experimental group. On the third day, the stimulation group showed significantly lower bilirubin levels (icteric grade) (p=0.013) compared with the control group. Physical stimulation could help to reduce bilirubin levels (icteric grade) and increase defecation frequency in neonates receiving phototherapy for jaundice.