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Baby Massage
A Touching Way to Bond with Baby and Improve Health
By Kim Seidel
Baby massage offers a simple and relaxing way to enhance the health of infants and parents. It also provides a special time to strengthen these new relationships.
Touch is a baby's first language, so using massage is an effective tool to communicate love and caring to your newborn, says Amy Marsolek, a state certified massage therapist with special training in baby massage who works at Franciscan Skemp Healthcare in La Crosse, Wis. "When you're giving your baby a massage, you're doing something nice for them. Many parents worry so much about giving material items to their children. A massage is priceless. It's spending good, quality time with your baby."
Baby massage, which releases those feel-good hormones known as endorphins, brings a sense of general relaxation for an infant. In turn, this helps to promote good health and more sound sleep. "Giving your baby a massage is relaxing for parents too," Marsolek says. "When you've been gone to work all day, you don't want to just sit in front of the TV with your baby."
Massage, especially on the stomach area, is known to ease symptoms of gas and colic – acute abdominal pain – for babies. It also improves circulation because it increases blood flow throughout the body, Marsolek says. Massage performed gently upon the baby's sinus area can help to relieve stuffiness with allergies and colds, she adds.
Debbie Hosch of Onalaska, Wis., turned to baby massage when her daughter was about 2 months old. "It was hard to get Rachel to settle down," Hosch says. "She wasn't colicky, but she definitely had her ornery times."
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