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Offer Your Baby the Benefits of Infant Massage

Here’s everything you need to know about why infant massage is great for your baby, and for Mom and Dad. (Material by www.infantmassageusa.org)

There are many benefits of Infant Massage

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!  Come join a class near you!

Benefits of Infant Massage for Baby

  • 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.)

Benefits of Infant Massage for Parents

  • 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.

Come enjoy these benefits with your baby!

Infant Massage provides these benefits in 4 distinct ways:

Stimulating

Stimulates all the systems of the body including the:

  • Nervous system
  • Circulatory system
  • Respiratory System
  • Elimination System
  • Immune System

Stimulates the release of oxytocin, known as the cuddle hormone (is released in both parent and child), prolactin (promoting milk production in the mother) and other endorphins.

Reduces muscle stiffness and normalizes muscle tone

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

Relief

  • 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

“Bonding is a unique relationship between two people. It is specific and endures through time.” M. Klaus

Bonding and Attachment

  • 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

Come enjoy the many benefits of massaging your baby and meet other new parents!  Find a Certified Educator of Infant Massage (CEIM) near you!

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