infant massage

My friend and fellow massage therapist ,Tania, has been instrumental in helping me spread the word of my outreach trip and knowledge about infant massage. She collaborated this information though web searches. I asked if I could share it in other forums and she was happy to let me. I am certain that I will share much more on benefits of infant massage in future posts but here's some to get us started!

Infant massage is massage given to a young infants involving tactile and kinesthetic stroke and rubbing stimulation as a therapy to enhance their cognitive and physical development. Such contact is also found in other mammals where the mother provides tactile stimulation as part of their care through licking, grooming, and physical contact

Did you know that with infant massage:

Full term infants receiving massage therapy show

- more weight

- greater length

- less irritability

- better sleep

- reduced crying and improved ability to regulate their stress hormones

Mothers with postnatal depression that massage their infants reduce their own depression and improve the quality of their social interactions with their infants.

Preterm newborns receiving massage in neonatal intensive-care units:

- gain more body weight than those that do not

- show increased bone mineralization, bone density, bone length, and head circumference

- show higher psycho-motor development and significantly higher Mental Development Index scores

The body temperature of preterm infants increases when given massage compared to controls "even though the incubator portholes remained open during the 15 min massage therapy session but not for the control group over an equivalent time period". This has been suggested to be due to better control by the infant's brain of its body state and its blood circulation.