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Although parents may come from broad backgrounds with cultural differences, every parent has something in common. Every parent wants to get close to his or her baby. Parents want to be the persons their children come to rely on, confide in, and go to in time of need. Parents want to have the best communication possible with their children, and that communication starts from birth.
Although most people think that communication requires words, there is another form of communication that doesn't require words at all. This form of communication requires the sense of touch, as touching is the first communication a baby receives. And the ancient art of infant massage is one such way of using tactile and kinesthetic senses for developing a relationship with your infant. Through infant massage your baby begins to know that s/he is loved and wanted. Trust develops from this caring relationship, beginning the language system between your infant and you, the parent/caregiver. How you hold your baby, how you caress your baby, how you look into your infant's eyes, and how your infant looks back into your eyes lays the foundation for your infant's growth and development. During massage, the brain is stimulated, enhancing brain development, and emotionally positive relationships are formed, establishing a strong mental health foundation that will last a lifetime. The child who is loved, respected and honored through nurturing touch, infant massage, grows physiologically, emotionally, and spiritually more healthy in a loving relationship. The child who is left alone without being touched eventually dies due to the lack of tactile stimulation. The dynamic of parent-infant interaction is the most important foundation upon which a child learns about him/herself, and about trust and respect. It is this first relationship that influences the way relationships are perceived. Infant massage is a natural way that you can learn about parenting, and infants can learn about being loved and honored. "Being touched and caressed, being massaged is food for the infant. Food as necessary as minerals, vitamins and proteins" said Frederick Leboyer, M.D., the first physician to dispute Western society's beliefs about awareness in the newborn.
Touch is vital for the development of attachment behavior and for early social development of the young child, in that both your infant and you have the capacity to elicit and respond to behaviors in mutually pleasurable ways. The original infant-parent tie is very important for infants-and society-because it is from this original attachment and bonding that all subsequent attachments will follow. Two conditions that enhance development of bonding are your ability to be sensitive in understanding and responding to your infant's cues, and the amount and nature of the interaction between you and your child. It is through infant massage that bonding may be deepened. Social interaction is significant for your well-being, essential for your child's development during the first three years of life, and paramount thereafter. Babies are social creatures who learn from their interactions with others. Expanding children's repertoire of interactive behaviors can assist them in influencing their world, and deepening their quality of life and the your lives, too. The focus of infant massage is not solely on your baby, but on the reciprocal interaction between your infant and you. Infant massage is not done to your infant, it is done with your infant. The massage technique is not merely manipulative, it is rather a warm and communicative interaction. It is a technique that allows you to engage and relax your infant in a mutually pleasurable interaction. Infant massage can be done at any time of the day when your baby is in a quiet alert state. It can be done while you are changing a diaper, after bath time and before your baby is going to sleep. There is no specific time of day that is better. Your routine and the routine of your child can dictate the best time. |
