Infant Massage: Loving touch communicates security and wellness

by Summer Greenlees, LMT, CYT, Doula, Perinatal Massage Specialist with guest Carrie Contey Ph.d (originally published in Austin Pregnancy Magazine)

From our research and experience with infant massage and birth clients, we have discovered that touching your infant has a lifetime of benefits. At this early age, physical, emotional and mental health are one and the same.

Baby begins feeling touch as an embryo about eight weeks old. The baby is less than an inch long, has no eyes or ears, yet skin sensitivity is highly developed. Nature begins the baby's massage long before she is born. ~Vimala Mclure, Infant Massage: A Handbook for Loving Parents

"Touching is the first communication a baby receives" says Frederick Leboyer, author of Loving Hands.

Not long ago newborns and infants were regarded as unconscious, unfeeling, utterly primitive, without memories, and it was the job of the parent to pour in good information onto a blank slate, shape us until we act good, and teach us what we deserve in life. Now science is helping us transcend that belief to realize "Babies are People too" - absolutely conscious, sensitive, remembering, communicating already at birth if not before. In the first days and weeks before baby's vision works well, touch maximizes sensation and feeling to find security, with a baby expecting to touch you, remember you, and enchant you. Beyond nourishment, nursing guarantees the infant 8-12 times a day or more of skin to skin contact, and as we better understand the behavior of infant human babies, we learn that with early eye focus of only 8-10 inches and little peripheral vision they pause to engage the parent's attention over and over again generating rhythmic micromovements in their bodies to the vibration of the words you say. Even if you don't or can't nurse, consider ways of sustaining communication and contact through a generosity of presence -- your touch, your words and intonation, the sounds, sensitivity and all you communicate in doing so creates a well of trust of who you are long before you'll hear: "ma-ma" or "da-da".

With relatively little preparation you will quickly know when to begin, when not to, when to pause, when to continue, and the rule of thumb for infant massage is 80% communication and 20% technique.

Considerations about Infant Massage and Touch Therapy. Simple routines of infant massage on a daily basis make for a perfect way to create and stimulate learning with your baby.

● Create a comfortable setting. Make sure you are comfortable, have eaten and well hydrated, in comfortable seated position, cross legged or legs outstretched.

● Attune yourself first. "How are you?" Take some deep belly breaths first to relax to be with them and second because when you relax your baby relaxes and you.

● Ask the baby for permission. "Do you want massage?" The baby may not verbally say "yes" or "no" but he or she will use body lanuage - movement and eye contact and sounds - that parents can tune into to know if the baby is feeling ready for a massage.

● Timing is compassionate. What is the pattern of states and feelings in the baby's day? When has your baby last eaten, or slept? How do you imagine massage fitting into the rhythm of your baby's day? Pick a time that works for both of you: first thing in the morning before or after a bath, or before bed before or after a bath, or in the afternoon after work or after childcare as you come back into your relationship together again.

● Loving kindness is your touch. Your touch at a level of sensation may feel very different to your baby than you expect. Remember that pacing and rhythm are natural as you get to know your baby's body. You may find steady, slow, constant, gentle and predictable touch the most calming, light feathery touch stimulating and little tapping or plucking movements fun. You adjust your touch and your pacing as a play between you and your feelings and the cues and reactions of your baby. If they become overstimulated or startled, you might want to slow down, if they are happy, calm and alert, keep doing what you're doing without overdoing it. With your focus on the quality of contact and communication the touch and massage will be easily enjoyable!

● Use touch and massage to communicate. It is important not to massage your baby while they are sleeping or while they are eating, since they can't communicate. If they are in a calm and alert state, communication will naturally flow between you and the baby, a two way interaction rather than a one way "doing something to" your baby.

● Let the baby tell you all about it. This time is precious for both of you to share who you are right now. The baby knows you're listening.

● Use an organic food-grade oil. Your baby will ingest oil from the session as they touch themselves and put their hands in their mouth. Read labels and we don't recommend using lotions for this reason. A great option is room temperature cold-pressed organic olive oil.

● Duration and progression of Massage. The duration of the massage is perhaps at most 15-20 minutes and among the number of different strokes and applications know that, by and large, a simple progression will work well to get you started - beginning with legs, stomach, chest, arms, face/scalp, ending on the back, then you could stimulate them on their mouth if you want them to eat by touching the edges of the mouth and they probably will answer by sticking out their tongue!

● When to reserve massage. Please refrain from massage if your baby is under 3 pounds, has fever, an incision, just ate, is already sleepy, medically unstable, fracture, malignancy. Instead consider how you could use holding time and skin to communicate you care.

● Associating massage and smell. Some people like to use scents to associate the time with the massage. Please ask about organic oils and high-quality essential oils like rose or lavendar to use. Read the label of anything you might consider applying to your baby's body for infant massage and be discerning.

● Emotional Release is common and balancing. Babies hold tension just like we do. After touch or massage their little bodies may go through a little release. Perhaps they're letting go of stress from the birth or some other new event that was too big to swallow. The nervous system reserves 'big' experiences for times when we can process them. The safety you're communicating in infant massage tells them it's Ok to feel what they feel. Throughout their life you have the opportunity to offer your children empathy verbally and nonverbally.

● Baby's brain and nervous system. As you gently provide infant massage you are simultaneously guiding your baby into what's called 'joint attention' and while you regulate the baby's experience through pacing, pressure, rhythm in your own body, and mirroring the feelings in your baby's body giving them greater access to their experience through you and helping them grow their brain and memory. The pattern of communication in this dyad (two) is necessarily dependent on you until the baby's linguistic left brain develops to support more independence usually at 2-1/2 years with research indicating that by three years of age your baby's basic capacities for language, learning, and memory will be effectively set into adolescence.

Remember you are meeting important needs by giving your baby touch and massage. Before beginning infant massage show your hands and eyes. When you touch feel yourself feeling the baby and the baby feeling you back and the dance between you. You might spontaneously start talking to one another -- "How are you?" "Do you want a massage?" "Can I touch you now?" "Too much?" "More?" Consider the novelty of sensations outside the womb. Generally applying gentle slow rhythmic massage movements however allow your baby to show you the way, learning the expressive language of body-based communication -- far more subtle than the syntax we learned in grammar school -- this is your real mother tongue. Learn and use the basic vocabulary of nonverbal cues to communicate. You'll know when your baby is ready for a massage and whether they enjoy a particular sensation or not. Trust the cues are genuine communications from baby to you.

● Engagement and readyness cues - your baby is in a quiet, alert state, making eye contact, smiling, face gazing, babbling or cooing sounds, and smooth movements of the arms and legs in response to your touch.

● Disengagement and avoidance cues - pulling away, frowning or grimacing, turning the head away, arching the back, crying, squirming, flailing of the arms and legs.

Initially there may be anxiety in the interaction from either side so allow for several attempts. Find a recipe that works for you and ways to slow yourself down. Let go of any pressure to get it right by staying curious. Make it play time with you and baby. Make up songs as you're doing it. At some times it's enough to simply place your hands over your baby in the space around them. Focus on your heart and trust what you and your baby are feeling is real.

Digestion Stroke Example

Of the many specific techniques taught in infant massage training one commonly taught is a "Digestion Stroke" - a gentle stroke of the belly with your pointing and middle finger together tracing the outline of flow of the large intestine starting from the baby's right hip up the inner area of the ribs across their midrife and down the left side of their belly to the inner edge of the pelvis on that side. This clockwise pattern follows the basic flow of elimination for the large intestine and can stimulate that movement.

Excerpt of interview with Carrie Contey, Ph.D.

What awarenesses would you say you most would hope to inspire in a pregnant mom in her 3rd trimester with or without a birth partner?
The awareness that this baby, living inside of her body is a person. He or she is already communicating and learning about life.
The best things mom can do are to:
1) Maximize joy - find ways each day to bring ease and pleasure into her experience. The hormones that this stimulates in mom's brain will travel into the baby's blood stream allowing him or her to sense that life is good.
2) Connect with your baby through your words, your thoughts and touch.

How would you want a mom to regard the role of touch in communicating with the baby both while pregnant and postpartum?
I would want her to think of it as a wonderful way of connecting with the person who is living and growing and learning about life through her. Use it to communicate love and that all is well. Moms can also use it when they are feeling stressed to communicate "Wow baby, I'm having a tough day and you might be feeling that. Let me rub my belly to remind myself, and to let you know, that we are safe and I'm going to do what I can do calm myself down." ~Carrie Contey, Ph.D.

CONCLUSION
Your baby needs you and especially your welcome touch. Consider learning your baby's first language by offering him or her infant touch and massage. A new mom recently asked, "Surely two weeks is too young?" Yet research indicates that these needs exist in your baby as conscious desires the moment they're born. When they're really little give touch instead of massage. Some traditions suggest in the first 40 days mom and baby be in sacred space adjusting to life outside the womb with as much skin to skin as possible. Now medical science reveals our genetic instincts offer a prescription for a healthy secure individual well into adolescence and part of the purpose of learning infant massage is to remember that medicine. In this early period certainly through the first year emotional, physical and mental needs are one and the same. Consider Dr. Tiffany Field's remarkable results that infant massage for premature babies produced between 25-50% increased weight gain and reduced stay in hospital by 5-6 days for only 3 fifteen minute massages daily in hospital.

If you take away anything from this article on infant massage remember this: nature made your baby dependent on you for both security and love -- flow love, show love, give loving touch, with eyes of love for your newborn or infant and if you find doing so easy and natural then you may well feel more gratitude for your parental history and if you feel anxiety, ambivalence or insecure in reaching out to contact and comfort your child with touch then know this - in doing so you too are receiving whatever may have been withheld from you either by accident, circumstance, or misguided thinking and you can feel gratitude for yourself and who you're being in the world now. If welcome touch was missing in your early childhood your instincts to touch may be disrupted and you may not know this at all as a conscious memory until you have your baby so consider receiving skilled pregnancy massage before baby is born from a massage doula who covers the spectrum of antepartum and postpartum care or learn more about infant massage and attachment theory in preparation for the certain desire your baby will have to hold you and be held and touched by you. Easily 25% of women show indications of postpartum depression though many are under-reported due to the stigma associated with it. It is so important in your baby's first year to have the caring practices and people you enjoy and trust for supportive companionship.

There's an informed movement in our culture for new heritages and traditions of infant attachment care awakened by the Big Being of our babies. Austin offers so many great resources - yoga therapists, massage therapists, doulas, birth educators, incredibly experienced midwives, and, OBGYN doctors.

For more details on more specific techniques consider taking a workshop on infant massage. The authors Summer and Stacy offer monthly Postnatal Yoga and Infant Massage workshops on the last Sunday of each month at Sundara Yoga Therapy www.sundarayogatherapy.com.

Recommendations

The Attachment Connection, Parenting a Secure and Confident Child using the Science of Attachment theory, 2008, Dr. Ruth P. Newton, Ph.D, www.newtoncenter.net

Carrie Contey, Ph.D., Author of Calms & The Slow Family Living Handbook, www.earlyparenting.com

International Institute of Infant Massage, Founders Wayne and Maria Mathias, www.infantmassageinstitute.com

Benefits of Infant Massage for Infants and also Benefits of Infant Massage for Parents

Infant Massage:
Promotes bonding, attachment, and bodymind/spirit connection
Increases self-esteem and sense of love, acceptance, respect and trust
Enhances communication

Benefits to the parent of giving massage
Improves ability to read infant cues and the synchrony between caregiver and infant
Promotes bonding and parenting skills
Increases confidence in parenting and the ability to communicate (verbal and non-verbal)
Provides quality time and time to share
Reduces stress and blood pressure
Improves sense of wellbeing and relaxation

Benefits to the infant of receiving massage
Improves body awareness, relaxation and release of accumulated stress
Stimulates circulation
Strengthens digestive, circulatory and gastrointestinal systems which can lead to weight gain
Reduces discomfort from teething, congestion, gas, colic and emotional stress
Improves muscle tone coordination, hormonal function, and sleep patterns
Increases elimination, circulation, and respiration