CONCLUSION

Health care professionals have long understood the importance of touch in parent-infant bonding. In recent decades, they have restructured their clinical settings and standards of care to facilitate early contact. These practices have, in turn, instilled a "common wisdom" among patients about the critical role of touch.

What a burgeoning field of research now shows, however, is that touch is much more significant and much more complex-than most people previously imagined. Touch is not simply a "nurturing" or "common-sense" activity. Rather, touch is potent enough to be used as a treatment modality for many chronic physical and behavioral disorders, and as a preventive mechanism that can bolster the immune and other physiological systems.

Touch should not be considered "alternative medicine." Studies have clearly demonstrated that touch therapies such as doula support during labor and massage for preterm infants-have a place in contemporary clinical settings. These touch therapies already show promise as low-intervention, low-cost approaches to prevention and treatment of conditions in which more "sophisticated" medical care is too costly, or ineffective.

As providers become more aware of the dramatic effects of touch on certain critical conditions, touch will be more generally recognized for the "lesser miracles" it effects in healthy patients-and this wisdom will spread through patient populations to the public at large. Ultimately, tactile stimulation may well be recognized as an approach to wellness: just as we see lifestyle factors such as diet and exercise as critical to maintaining our daily health, we need to think about touch in the same way.