- Welcome
- Meet Susan
- Acupressure for Emotional Healing
- Energy Field Massage
- Massage Instruction:
- - Infant
- - Child
- - Family
- - Senior
- Contact Susan
INFANT MASSAGE
Infant massage -- also known as Touch Communication -- is a powerful way to help one’s baby and further the bond between parent and child. Extensive research has shown that infant massage benefits every aspect of a baby’s growth, including:
- weight gain
- brain development
- body awareness and coordination
- social cueing
- security and self image
- attachment and bonding
- sleep patterns
- digestion
This style of oil massage combines east Indian and Swedish traditions plus reflexology (foot massage). It has been standardized by the International Association of Infant Massage, and Susan is a certified instructor in this style. Her acupressure background further enriches this approach with a Chinese medical perspective, as parents are taught helpful acupressure points activated during the massage.
Susan teaches group classes and private lessons that parents and their babies attend together. Instruction in the massage strokes is woven around the nursing, diapering and sleeping of our little ones. Throughout, we work with an eye to reading their cues to better understand their needs and the feedback they provide us. Discussion on infant stimulation and development is the backdrop against which we massage, cuddle and care for the babies, yielding a rich class experience. Parents gain proven skills to assist their infants, while learning lifelong tools they can use throughout their child’s maturation.
Infant Massage classes run for 90 minutes. They are scheduled to accommodate the mid-to late- morning alert cycles of most babies, in order to engage babies who are awake and alert in the massage process. However, babies’ schedules are unpredictable and sometimes an infant is asleep or unready for the work. In such cases, the parent is given a doll on which to learn the massage strokes in class. Parents are given handouts at each lesson, to help them practice the massage strokes at home with their babies.
Links:
www.healthyfamily.org/cs/user/print/article/2
www.iaim.homestead.com