The 5 most important benefits of baby massage and baby yoga.
1. Further develop your bond.
For some parents bonding does not happen instantly, it can build up over days, weeks even months. Massage can help with having a strong emotional and social bond between parent and baby. Touch is the most developed sense at birth and through massage you can communicate love, security and trust to your baby immediately.
During massage parents use eye contact, talking/singing, exchange of smells and positive touch to help develop their unique attachment.
2. Help you and your baby to relax
When you massage your baby, your baby releases the “feel good” hormone called Oxytocin, which will help you both relax. Baby massage and baby yoga is very calming and can help reduce tension, restlessness and irritability as well as promoting sleep. As you learn more baby massage and baby yoga techniques it increases your ability to help reassure your baby and helps your baby to relax when stressed.
Baby yoga plays an important role in the beginning, enhancing & continuing the bonding process between parent& baby. This is through eye contact, sound of the parents voice, smell of parent , touch and the release of Oxytocin and Prolactin.
Baby yoga also improves communication by helping parents understand and recognise their babies cues.
A strong bond has been shown to help support the emotional and social development of the infant and child
“We’ve learnt so much about massage and yoga and I’m so glad that I didn’t hesitate to book onto this course”
3. Helps to provide relief and discomfort
Baby massage and baby yoga offer relief from several issues related to babies. Massaging the abdomen increases bowel movement, aiding the digestion and excretion of waste and helping to relive wind, constipation and colic.
By using special massage techniques around the eyes, cheeks, nose and chest the pain associated with teething, colds and congestion can all be relieved and by using nutritious oils during massage the condition of the skin can be improved. Stimulation of the skin through massage also increases the production of endorphins which helps to reduce pain and tension.
The movements in baby yoga compliment the movements in baby massage and the combination provides your baby's digestive system with a high degree of support. Yoga stretches help massage the abdomen and facilitate digestion and expulsion of air from the bowel.
Baby yoga also promotes respiration which encourages deeper breathing which helps the baby's gastrointestinal function.
4. Aid with your baby’s development.
Massage benefits the lymphatic system which produces lymphocytes which fight infection and protect against diseases. Massage helps by stimulating the flow of lymph and removing toxins, this will help the immune system and help fight infections. Babies who are massaged have better immune systems and show more weight gain.
When a baby is born the higher part of the brain is still immature and developing as brain cells mature and wire together, this controls memories, feelings and actions. It is very important that a baby has positive first experiences so that the brain has the correct stimulation for it to run, by massaging your baby you are boosting their circulation and stimulating all the systems in their body.
Myelination is the process of when a neuron is coated in a fatty substance, allowing the neuron to transmit signals a lot quicker around the brain and body. By massaging a baby through touch, having eye contact, talking/singing and sharing smells it stimulates the body, enhancing myelination which will speed up nerve impulses helping to teach babies about communication, speech and language.
“I learnt so much and am able to give baby a massage at home thanks to the super tuition at class and handy videos sent to me afterwards”
5. Stimulates their senses
We all know about our 5 senses; taste, touch, sound, smell, sight, but did you know about your 2 other senses, the sense of balance & movement (vestibular system) and the sense of body position (proprioceptive system).
Yoga stimulates these senses through massage, movement, touch, gentle stretches and songs.
The vestibular system controls the balance and movement in the body. Its role is to send messages to the brain to let it know whether the body is moving, staying still or in what direction it is going. This system receives this information from fluid filled canals in the inner ear, this structure responds to movement, change of direction, change of head position and gravity. The vestibular system co ordinates eye and head movements, such as when a baby looks at an object, the brain will register if the object is moving or the child’s head is moving.
By using yoga movements such as safely swinging, rocking and bouncing we can stimulate the vestibular system helping with balance and co ordination. It also aids in the development of speech and spatial awareness.
The proprioceptive system is the sense of body awareness; it is your body’s sense of awareness with relation to its surroundings. When a baby’s born they have no awareness they have arms or legs, by moving baby in to yoga positions we will be strengthening muscles and giving them more body awareness. Yoga helps to develop this system by strengthening it as the mind and body work together, through stretches, moving and discovering their abilities and the world around them.
