benefits of baby massage | In touch with my baby

Benefits of baby massage

* Relaxes and soothes

Nurturing touch is a naturally rewarding way to relieve stress for you and your baby

* Deepens bonding

Essential one-on-one time that will strengthen your family understanding and communication in a relaxed and playful manner.

* Improves communication

Increases your confidence to follow your instinct and your sensitivity to the baby's cues.

* Contributes to development

Stimulates growth and healthy development of your baby's body, mind and spirit.

* Empowers

Enhances your ability to understand your baby's special needs.

* Helps baby sleep better

Helping your baby release stress which builds daily from new experiences means more rest for baby and you.

* Family

Assist older siblings to welcome a new baby through their participation in a portion of the massage with appropriate touch and pressure

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Dad can massage too!

Dads don't always have it easy. It may seem that they have the easy option, especially to new moms with difficult babies, and there is certainly an element of truth in that.

But dads can easily feel shut out of their new baby's life, especially if mum is breastfeeding. It may seem that there is no place for dad in the child's life, especially in the earlier weeks and months when there isn't a lot of playing and laughing going on. Dads should always have a chance to play a role in their child's life .

Massage is one of several ways to get him involved. Through touching and caressing the baby, a dad is conscious that he is doing something that will truly benefit his child. There are other things as well, bathing the baby for example, or if the baby is bottle fed he can take his turn with that.

When a dad is interested in doing the massage, let him! It is a wonderful sight to see.

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Impact on Premature Child

Premature babies that are given a massage show a 47% better increment of weight per day as compared to those premature babies that do not receive proper massage after birth.

After massage, premature babies show much better improvement in their health and recover quicker. These babies also show a better improvement of the neurological order and show quicker signs of normality than other premature babies.

Other Biological Impacts

Massaging helps in the development of metabolic activity and hence the child exhibits better digestion and enhanced growth.

Another important aid that massaging provides is that it regulates the hormone excretion of the body. The hormone regulation and distribution of the body gets altered and causes many problems, such as change in mood and depression after birth. By massaging, the hormone distribution is improved and reduces these effects.

Massaging also tends to improve the cardiovascular system and to give relaxation to the body. The baby child would experience better blood circulation and with a regular massage the blood pressure level would also remain mantained.

Impact on Bones and Muscles

There are many benefits associated with a proper massage.

The physical aspects include the strengthening of bones and muscles. With various formats that are done gradually, the bones get an opportunity to offer resistance and in this process of resilience they become robust.

This is a smooth struggle for the structure of a baby that helps them to overcome and shine with perfection.

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Future generations

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Infants massage enhances the parent-baby bond, helping to create more family-centered values. Babies are aware human beings who deserve respect, tenderness, warmth and, above all, a listening heart.

Nowadays many parents are in need of support in our society, so that they can carry out the important work of parenting, These interactions contribute to future generations expressing more compassion toward and responsiblity for their fellow human beings.

Infant massage is a foundation from which parenting skills emerge. Infant massage instructors train parents and caregivers to massage their babies and read their babies cues while developing interactional skills enhancing communication, Altough many infant massage programs were first designed for healthy babies and their parents, infant massage may be used with children with special needs. These may include infants and toddlers who are communicatively, physically or cognitively challenged, drug-exposed or HIV positive infants and medically fragile infants in intensive care. Other groups who benefit from learning infant massage are teen-age mothers and fathers, incarcerated mothers, homeless families, women in recovery and foster parents.

Infant massage instruction encourages nurturing touch and communication trough training, education and research. Throughout the world, by using infant massages parents, caregivers and children are loved, valued and

respected. Every parent, child and infant will have the opportunity to experience the lifelong

joy that comes from having an early relationship that is loving, healthy and secure.

Infant massage is not only about massaging a baby, it's about working with families: building

nurturing relationships, assisting with bonding and attachment, furthering respect, trust

and love, and training a parent to read the cues of the baby so that the child in return feels love

and security. It is the parent who has the greatest impact on the life of a child, and it is the child

who can have the greatest impact on the parent, laying the foundation upon which the

parent-infant relationship grows.