Prenatal & Postpartum Massage
After all the congratulations and well wishes, you still have to live in your pregnancy body: your back hurts and your feet are swelling, you're tired and more than a little cranky, and you have to pee every 20 minutes! Massage can help with everything except your overworked bladder.
Research shows prenatal massage therapy can help reduce anxiety, decrease symptoms of depression, relieve muscle aches and joint pains, and improve labor outcomes and newborn health. Studies done in the past 10 years have shown that hormone levels associated with relaxation and stress are significantly altered when massage therapy is introduced to women’s prenatal care. This leads to mood regulation and improved cardiovascular health.
Postpartum massage is immensely beneficial as well and provides many health benefits, including pain relief, hormone regulation, swelling reduction, better sleep, and improved breastfeeding. Myofascial release breaks down scar tissue, speeds healing and assists with C-section recovery; all of which can help restore your body to its pre-pregnancy condition,
Infant Massage
Touch is the first sense we develop and touch is your baby's first language. Infant massage is a wonderful and natural way of providing the essential early nurturing contact that helps to develop strong parent-child bonds. Numerous studies have shown the many developmental benefits of infant massage:
-
Infants who receive regular massage often experience reduced stress, improved self-regulation and body-awareness, as well as improvements in many developmental facets like muscle tone, joint mobility, gastrointestinal issues (gas and colic).
-
Research suggests that infant massage and infant massage parent education can increase parent confidence, resulting in deeper attachment, more success adapting to parenthood and developing strategies to cope with its many stressors.
-
Bedtime routines, especially those including infant massage, have been shown to improve many elements of the sleep cycle for both babies and their caregivers.
