Infant Massage

Infant massage

In a 30 minute session, a massage therapist will give your baby a massage while showing you how to massage your baby yourself and give you an opportunity to practice these techniques under her guidance. Performing infant massage at home will bring you some of the benefits listed below.

Benefits for Parents and Caregivers:

  • Relaxing, pleasurable one-to-one time with baby

  • A great way to connect and get to know baby

  • Helps parents to feel more confident in handling their baby

  • Helps parents to understand and interpret baby’s cues and cries

  • Provides a positive way for fathers and other family members to be involved in nurturing baby

  • Helps parents to develop their nurturing skills by learning to listen and respond to baby

  • Helps to alleviate stress and develop strong family bonds for working parents who are separated from their children during the day

  • Can help to alleviate postpartum depression in mothers

infant-massage.jpg

A baby’s physical health, mental health and development are all impacted by infant massage. According to the Asian Nursing Research Journal (2012), appropriate stimulation of the baby’s sense of touch positively affects psychosocial development and encourages attachment between a mother and her baby. Infant massage can assist with weight gain and overall growth, as well as the length of time a baby sleeps and how soundly they sleep. It can be used to calm a colicky baby by reducing stress, deepening the bond with the parent by releasing the hormone oxytocin (the feel good hormone) and decreasing the levels of cortisol (the stress hormone) in both the baby and caregiver. Massage can also aid with the development of a baby’s motor skills.

“The application of infant massage as a catalyst for normalizing a baby’s physical and emotional life has a wide range of benefits, including helping to promote relaxation; improving sensory integration; helping aid deeper and longer sleep; encouraging mid-line orientation; assisting in bonding and attachment; helping improve state regulation; assisting in vocalization; stimulating the circulatory and GI systems; assisting in pain relief; and enhancing neurological development.”

~ By Maria Mathias, founding member of IAIM (International Association of Infant Massage)