Download Communicating with Your Baby through Massage

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.