“Being touched and caressed, being massaged, is food for the infant. Food as necessary as minerals, vitamins, and proteins.”
~Dr. Frederick Laboyer
Infant Massage is an age-old tradition that has been passed down from mother to daughter since the beginning of time.
Infant Massage offers many benefits to both your baby and you!
Benefits of Infant Massage
1. Stimulating - Stimulates all the systems of the body including the:
Reduces muscle stiffness and normalizes muscle tone
2. Relaxing
~Dr. Frederick Laboyer
Infant Massage is an age-old tradition that has been passed down from mother to daughter since the beginning of time.
Infant Massage offers many benefits to both your baby and you!
Benefits of Infant Massage
- Infant-Parent attachment or “bonding”
- Relaxation
- Helps baby feel loved
- Promotes better sleep
- Facilitates body awareness
- Boosts immune system
- Sensory stimulation
- Improves skin condition
- Improves blood circulation
- Helps digestion
- Balances respiration
- Relief for teething pains
- Help waste elimination
- Helps build parents’ and baby’s self-esteem
- Helps you learn about your baby (their needs and desires)
- Relaxes parents
- Pleasurable experience
- Stimulates production of oxytocin (Oxytocin is a hormone which can be produced by both male and female persons during massage. It is useful as a pain reliever and has a calming effect on the person.)
- Caregivers report feeling more comfortable and confident in their ability to care for baby.
- Parents learn to understand and respond to baby’s cues.
- Parents learn techniques to comfort, calm and soothe their babies.
- Provides an additional avenue for close and nurturing contact.
- Infant Massage is one of the most natural and pleasant methods of providing this important early nurturing and an amazing tool for helping parents become closer to their babies.
1. Stimulating - Stimulates all the systems of the body including the:
- Nervous system
- Circulatory system
- Respiratory System
- Elimination System
- Immune System
Reduces muscle stiffness and normalizes muscle tone
2. Relaxing
- Helps relieve tension built up from all the stimulation in the baby’s environment
- Helps babies handle sensory stimulation and respond in a relaxed manner
- Helps babies sleep better
- Helps regulate sleep/wake cycle
- Touch combined with vocalization helps reduce pain levels up to 80%
- Helps tone digestive tract
- Helps alleviate gas and promote elimination
- Releases hormones for food absorption.
- Releases endorphins, natural pain killers, to ease emotional distress
- Infant massage draws on all the elements of bonding and attachment
- Eye-to-eye contact, skin-to-skin, body scent, vocalization, taste, responsiveness
- Hormones stimulated by infant massage promote bonding and attachment between parent and baby