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Communicating with Your Baby through Massage By Shannon Doher, CPMT, CIMT Touch Institute Los Angeles Inc. After weeks of waiting, doctor visits, pre-natal classes and nesting, new parents welcome their bundle of joy with love in their heart and hope for the future. The weeks ahead are marked with milestones, and sometimes, sleepless nights, disrupted schedules, doctor visits, mommy-and-me classes, and understandably, stress. Today’s parents are busier than ever and whether they work outside the home or stay in, parents and their babies need time to unwind. The calming power of touch is a loving way to communicate to your baby that it’s time to relax. Infant massage has been practiced for centuries in many eastern countries but is a relatively new modality in the west. While it is believed that massage has its roots in India, as a medical practice, it can be traced back over 4000 years to ancient Chinese medical journals. In Chinese medicine, massage is called acupressure. Massage works with the body’s blood supply, lymphatic system, and nervous system to aid in healing. As the public’s interest in this age old practice grows and new research is conducted, more medical practitioners are reacquainting themselves with the benefits of massage and more insurance carriers are covering it. But why massage a baby? In India, infant massage is practiced daily from birth to promote bonding and aid in everything from sleep to growth, and for relief from congestion, digestive difficulties, and pain. Controlled research studies in the United States has primarily been with pre-term infants, infants and children with various medical conditions such as asthma, autism, cerebral palsy, cancer, and Down syndrome, and depressed mothers of new born infants. The results of these studies point to positive outcomes such as increased weight gain and better performance on developmental testing in preterm infants, decreased anxiety and decreased cortisol levels immediately following massage in asthmatic children, decreased touch sensitivities in autistic children, less fussiness and better sleep patterns in babies of depressed mothers, and improved mother-infant interaction. Infant and pediatric massage therapists, working with healthy infants and their families, report that infant massage helps to facilitate a positive bonding experience, improves sleep, reduces colic, reduces pain associated with teething and constipation, and reduces stress and anxiety in the parent as well as the baby when dealing with periods of schedule disruptions, inoculations, and sleep deprivation. As positive benefits mount, the medical community has begun to embrace infant massage. It is becoming the standard of care in neo-natal intensive care units and frequently offered as part of prenatal education. Many hospitals now provide infant and pediatric massage therapy for their youngest patients. Even the government is getting on board. Some state health departments are building infant massage into early intervention programs designed to prevent child abuse and neglect. So how does it work? Certified massage therapists who are specially trained in infant massage, use a doll for demonstration purposes and lead parents through a series of strokes rooted in Swedish massage. Parents are taught to first “check-in” with their baby and gain permission to proceed. Parents learn to recognize their baby’s cues and if baby is not in the mood for a massage, or is hungry or fussy, parents are encouraged to address those needs first and try massage at a later time. Many experts believe that recognizing an infants needs and addressing them as soon as possible helps prevent the vicious cycle of upset baby, upset parent, stressed out family. Infant massage is designed to reduce this type of family stress. If an infant is receptive to a massage, it generally lasts 20 to 30 minutes. There are various routines designed to aid in a whole host of concerns from constipation to teething, but the basic strokes can be learned in three or four sessions spaced a week apart. Whether a massage session lasts 10 minutes or 30 minutes is not important. The thing to remember is that infant massage provides a much deserved “time-out” for moms and dads, as well as their infants. Massage is an enjoyable activity that can be practiced virtually anywhere and has documented benefits for both babies and their caregivers. More importantly though, infant massage provides a very special opportunity to bond with your baby and foster a loving relationship built on respect, trust and communication.