Contents
What Is Infant Massage?
Infant Massage Supplies
When, Where, and How Long to Massage Your Baby
How to Get Started
Infant Massage Strokes
Infant Massage Classes
Learn more with these titles from Barnes & Noble
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- Learn the concrete benefits of infant massage for both you and your baby
- Find out when, where, and how to massage with step-by-step illustrations
- Know where to find classes and further information about infant massage
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What Is Infant Massage?
Infant massage is a way of bonding with your baby through gentle touch. It can help
facilitate the healthy development of a baby’s physical and emotional self and at the same time benefit you by strengthening your physical and emotional bond with your baby. A baby develops a relationship with the person who gives the massage. For this reason, only parents, primary caregivers, and others you want bonding with your baby should be the ones providing this kind of nurturing touch.
Why Massage Your Baby?
Touch is vitally important to a baby’s well-being, especially during the earliest weeks of life. It is essentially a first language for babies and is their primary learning channel. Every time you touch, hold, rock, kiss, or cuddle your baby, you are communicating your love.
Practicing infant massage has many tangible benefits for your baby. It can help to:
- Relax your baby
- Encourage weight gain
- Boost brain growth
- Strengthen the immune system
- Increase circulation
- Aid in digestion
- Ease discomfort from ailments such as gas, colic, and constipation
- Improve sleep
- Help your baby learn to trust you as a parent
Infant massage provides many benefits for parents as well. It can:
- Offer an opportunity to bond with your baby
- Encourage communication with your baby
- Help you build confidence in your parenting skills
- Enable you to learn your baby’s cues and expressions
- Help ease symptoms of postpartum depression
Develop a Strong Parent-Baby Bond
Bonding is a crucial part of a baby’s development and must be nurtured to create an enduring connection between parent and child. Infant massage helps develop healthy parent-infant bonding, which supports every aspect of a baby’s growth and development.
Bonding through touch is rooted in biology: when a mother touches her baby during infant massage, the hormone oxytocin is released in both of their bodies, which facilitates bonding, recognition, attachment, and trust, and builds a connection between mother and child.
Get to Know Your Baby
Massage allows you to get to know your new baby better. Spending quality time with your baby allows you to become more familiar with:
- Your baby’s needs
- The meaning of your baby’s facial expressions
- The meaning of your baby’s cries
- Your baby’s likes and dislikes in terms of touch
Infant Brain Development
Every time you touch your baby, you are influencing her brain development, so how
you touch your baby is an important factor in how her brain grows. Studies have shown that massaging your baby stimulates the growth of the myelin sheath—the insulation that encloses nerve fibers in the brain. This insulation allows nerve impulses to travel quickly and efficiently. You might notice these benefits if you observe your baby’s behavior and see that she exhibits the following behaviors:
- Stays focused for longer periods of time
- Seems more curious
- Demonstrates strong memory skills
- Has well-coordinated movements
Comfort, Calm, and Soothe
Infant massage can also help your infant learn how to comfort, calm, and soothe himself, or self-regulate. Additionally, gentle and loving touch can release three hormones—oxytocin, serotonin, and melatonin—in your baby’s body. The release of these hormones can elicit the following responses in your baby’s body:
- Relaxation, which can assist with sleep, pain reduction, and overall stress reduction
- Regulation of heart rate and respiration
- Increased alertness
- Deeper and more regulated sleep
As you watch your baby’s response to touch, you can become empowered in your role as caregiver and nurturer and boost your confidence in your parenting skills, especially if you’re a first-time parent.
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