Vimala McClure was a young woman in her early 20’s when she went to India and cared for babies in a large children’s home. Despite the very rustic living situation, and the limited amount of food for the babies, they seemed to thrive. She wondered why, until the evening she saw the older girls massaging the babies before putting them to bed. “The babies loved it,” Vimala said, “and they went right to sleep afterwards.” So when Vimala returned to the US, and had babies of her own, she chose to massage them, and in the process brought infant massage to the West.
The massage Vimala designed, in those deep moments listening to her own babies, combined together the Indian infant massage techniques she had learned at the children’s home, with Swedish massage, reflexology and yoga. She collected information about babies’ amazing response to touch, and wrote her classic book, Infant Massage: A Handbook for Loving Parents. That book started a movement. The massage she developed, responding to her babies’ subtle cues as she stroked them, has spread around the world, bringing many parents and babies closer to each other.
So why should you massage your baby?
- To feel closer to your baby, and understand her language.
- To help him sleep better (and you!).
- To help your prematurely born baby gain weight and maturity.
- To relieve constipation, reduce gas, and mature the digestive tract.
- And perhaps most of all to help you and your baby relax.
That is one of the major things that studies of infant massage show – a slight increase in stress during the massage itself, and afterwards a big reduction in stress hormones in your baby’s urine, and yours too.
In fact, mothers who feel depressed or stressed in the early months of their parenting find that massage helps them enjoy being with their baby. Fathers who massage their babies have been shown to feel closer and have more affectionate interactions with their baby when they massage their babies regularly. Massage helps parents and babies bond with each other.
One of the unique features of Vimala’s massage is taking a few minutes to ask permission of a baby before starting. Put a bit of oil on your hand (about the size of a quarter) and rub them together so that your baby can see and hear them. Open your hands and show your palms to your baby, looking into your baby’s eyes, if you can. Ask your baby if s/he would like a massage. “Do you want a massage?” Watch your baby’s response. Open body, eye contact, reaching for you, are all signs of openness to the experience. They say “yes.” Turning away, fussing, and restlessness are some signs that baby is saying “no.”
In Infant Massage, A Handbook for Loving Parents, Vimala teaches the massage, step-by-step. She gives advice on setting up for the massage, and has sections for fathers, use of music, and massaging when your child is sick, amongst others. It is truly a classic that gives you all the information you need. If learning from a book is not optimal for you, consider classes from instructors who work with Infant Massage USA or other chapters of the International Association of Infant Massage (see IAIM.net).
Infant Massage is a great way to help you and your baby have a great beginning, helping the two of you fall in love with each other and truly learn to communicate. And thrive.
Links:
Touch Research Institute’s Tiffany Fields’ Book Titles List:
Touch and Massage in Early Child Development
Touch Therapy
Massage Therapy Research
Complementary and Alternative Therapies Research
Infancy
The Amazing Infant
Children A to Z
Heartbreak
http://www6.miami.edu/touch-research/Books.htmlNewsletter “Touchpoints,” from The Touch Research Institute:
http://www6.miami.edu/touch-research/Touchpoints.htmlInfant Massage USA
http://www.infantmassageusa.org/?gclid=CM_bhaz54qQCFcu7KgodfGqqJwNurturing Military Families, from Infant Massage USA:
Excerpt: “He had just arrived home from the war the day before. Learning to massage his baby helped him get to know his baby in a special way and empowered him as a caregiver.” http://www.infantmassageusa.org/news/nurturing-military-families/Touching: The Human Significance of the Skin
A book by Ashley Montagu, excerpts: “The doctor tries to assist Nature with something it doesn’t need assistance to do…The C-Section replaces the natural massaging passage of the newborn through its mother’s womb with the artificial inducement of anesthesia, an incision of its mother, and the baby being lifted out directly from the womb by a surgeon into the cold world.”“…What the man, in his kindness and his goodwill did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening, were nature’s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings, so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.”
