In our study, the number of bowel movements increased significantly in the intervention group compared to control group while size and consistency of stool were not influenced by massage. The number of bowel movements could not be explained by more small and fewer large defecations as the effect on size was not influenced.The increase could be a sign of shorter transit time, as found by Ayas et al. (2006). As consistency has been found to be a valid reflection of transit time (Hammer and Phillips, 1993), consistency of faeces should have been influenced in our study; however, this was not the case. A possible explanation is that the increase in bowel movementswas too small to have any effect on consistency