The following factors can probably influence the effectiveness of abdominal massage: number of weeks,duration of massage sessions, and pressure used during abdominal massage. In earlier studies, number of weeks varied from 3 to 12 weeks (Ayas et al., 2006; Emly et al.,1998; Harrington and Haskvitz, 2006; Holey and Lawler,1995; Klauser et al., 1992; Liu et al., 2005; Preece, 2002;Resende and Brocklehurst, 1993). All studies report an effect on bowel function to some extent except Klauser et al. (1992). Klauser et al. (1992) conclude that abdominal massage does not affect colonic function to any clinically relevant degree in the investigated group. One explanation could be that the intervention lasted for 3 weeks and the participants only received nine sessions. The study also had few participants (n = 16); this may mean its power was too low to detect any significant difference between the intervention and control group. Ayas et al. (2006) also gave abdominal massages for 3 weeks, but gave massages each day during the study period. They found that abdominal massage had positive effects on bowel movements per week and on colonic transit time. On the other hand, abdominal massage was added to a standard bowel program with fibre diet and digital stimulation, makingcomparison difficult (Ayas et al., 2006). The duration of massage sessions varied between the different studies with the shortest session being 10 min (Resende and Brocklehurst, 1993) to 20 min (Emly et al., 1998; Holey and Lawler, 1995). No study was found where duration of massage session was evaluated. According to pressure, massage with moderate pressure were found to havegreater effect on gastric motility than light pressure massage in preterm infants (Diego et al., 2005). It is unknown whether the condition is the same for massage given to adults.