Learning how to massage your baby is one of the simplest, most enjoyable things you can do with your child. Family & Children’s Services (F&CS) is teaching F&CS parents and/or caregivers how to perform massage on their baby or babies as a way to gently nurture and spend quality and loving time with children.
Massage is a wonderful way to help strengthen bonds. This is the key to a child’s development, as many researchers and clinicians feel that a positive maternal-child bond helps to form the basis for future relationships.
Research suggests that infant massage can have various health benefits. For example, infant massage might soothe your baby and reduce crying, aid digestion and help relieve colic, gas and constipation, increase daily weight gain, enhance your baby’s adjustment to nighttime sleep, and help them sleep more deeply, relieve nasal congestion and teething discomfort, help develop good muscle tone, coordination and suppleness. enhance body awareness, boost the immune system and so much more.
In addition to skin-to-skin contact, research has shown routine touch and massage leads to improved cognitive performance and increased alertness and attentiveness in children. Yet, according to the JOHNSON’S® Global Bath Time Report, only 23% of parents around the world say that massages can be extremely important to their child’s brain development!
Your touch contributes to your baby’s first emotional bonds. This contact helps build a foundation for emotional and intellectual development later in life. So the next time you give your baby a massage after their bath, know this act of love means more to their development and can have a lasting positive impact.
To learn more about infant massage, visit infantmassageusa.com
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