Chiropractor, Dr Beccy Norman
Here at Reflex Spinal Health we now offer something new and exciting to parents and their little ones- baby massage courses!
Baby massage is hugely popular at the moment, and with good reason. Touch is an important way to promote secure parent-child attachment, a method which is used all over the world. Infant massage is an amazing way to express love, promote attachment and there is plenty of research to show how it can help alleviate baby ailments too. Following all this you can see why I was so excited to get involved in a therapy that compliments what I do as a paediatric chiropractor too. Being an evidence-based practitioner I love how many of the great benefits are backed up with the research too. I have listed just a few great ones below:
Gassy babies and Colic
Baby massage is great for getting stuff moving and relieving some of that painful wind and colic. All babies have wind and its normal, but when you see them straining and going red in the face, or have prolonged periods of crying it’s definitely time for you to give them a little helping hand. Baby massage is a great way for parents to help once they know how.
Stress levels
New research from the university of Warwick says that massage may help infants under the age of
six months sleep better, cry less, and be less stressed – what parent doesn’t want that!?
They looked at a total of 598 infants under the age of 6 months. The study showed the babies had lower levels of stress hormones like cortisol compared to infants who did not receive massage.
Weight gain and development
It has been shown that with baby massage there is a staggering improvement in preterm babies struggling to gain weight and babies struggling to gain weight in general. Baby massage is great at developing their gastrointestinal system.
Research also showed that bay massage helped babies to improve motor skills and aid in development.
Other benefits of Baby Massage
The list is endless but other great benefits include:
- Strengthens and tones muscles
- Relief from teething
- Reduce effects of postnatal depression
- Gives parents confidence in handling their baby and increase bonding
- Offers skin to skin opportunity for non-breastfed babies
We are only running limited classes so if you and your baby want to grab a spot for our next 4 week course then give our lovely reception team a call and get yourself booked in. The courses will be run by me, Beccy Norman. We are also offering a complimentary 15 minute spinal checks for parents as quite often you need some TLC too!
References:
Gallace, A. and Spence, C., 2010. The science of interpersonal touch: an overview. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 34(2), pp.246-259.
Glover, V., Onozawa, K. and Hodgkinson, A., 2002, December. Benefits of infant massage for mothers with postnatal depression. In Seminars in Neonatology (Vol. 7, No. 6, pp. 495-500). Elsevier.
Touch therapy to infants exposed to cocaine in utero
T.Field , F.Scafidi , S.Schanberg , 1990 . Massaged babies gained weight and scored better on the Brazelton Neonatal Assessment Scale
Underdown, A., Barlow, J., Chung, V. and Stewart-Brown, S., 2006. Massage intervention for promoting mental and physical health in infants aged under six months. Cochrane Database Syst Rev, 4(4).
