Prenatal
More on Prenatal/Postpartum Massage:
Pregnancy is a time of major structural, physiological, psychological, spiritual, and social change in a woman's life. Massage therapy is an appropriate form of adjunctive health care for women in both normal and high-risk pregnancies.
Postpartum massage can help the body return to its pre-pregnancy condition and relieve the stress of caring for a newborn. It can increase recovery by bringing relief from sore muscles and relaxing the mother. Abdominal massage helps shrink the uterus and relieve subcutaneous scar tissue. Connective tissue and scar massage techniques can be used to facilitate healing from Cesarean Sections.
Benefits include...
- Reduce stress and induce relaxation which improves blood flow to your body.
- Relieve muscle spasm and myofascial pain.
- Increase circulation, bringing your body better cellular nutrition as well as relieving edema or swelling in your legs.
- Help reduce the strain on the joints of your lower back and hips.
- Has been shown to improve the outcome of labor.
- Provides emotional support and physical endurance.
- Develops the sensory awareness necessary to relax during the first stage of labor and recruits appropriate muscles during the pushing phase.
- Provides expectant mothers with the necessary experience of loving and nurturant touch so that she may touch her own baby in a loving way.
- Improves the outcome of labor with reduced pain perception and shorter labor.
- Provides immune system enhancements.
Infant
More on Infant Massage:
Loving touch expresses emotional affection toward your baby and will assist in fulfilling your baby's need for physical contact. Both emotional and physical benefits from an infant massage will help your baby achieve all around well-being.
Infant massage encourages muscular coordination, helping your baby to open and straighten his or her arms and legs instead of returning to the fetal position during the early months.
Benefits include...
- Reduces the circulation of cortisol, a stress hormone, in the bloodstream
- Introduces confidence and trust in your relationship with one another
- Stimulates the release of endorphins that subdue pain
- Helps relieve some of the trauma and anxiety associated with birth, a new environment, and/or weaning
- Improves relaxation and reduces stress
- Promotes parenting skills
- Provides quality bonding time
- Increases 'communication' between baby and parent
- Allows parent to better understand baby's cries
- Helps baby become happier and calm
- Helps the growth and development of your baby through touch (babies deprived of human touch do not thrive)
- Promotes the increase of growth hormones from the pituitary gland
- Encourages the flow of waste-removing lymphatic fluid and improves the body's resistance to infection
- Promotes muscular relaxation and joint flexibility
- Cleanses your baby by removing dead skin cells