Parenting 201: Baby massage

Learn to master the art of attachment with your infant. Read "Baby 101: Parenthood primer" in the August 2004 issue of Canadian Living magazine.

Health professionals recommend skin-to-skin contact between mother and infant to promote attachment. There is now increasing evidence that gentle massage also helps both parents become more sensitive, responsive, and attached to their newborn. Massage stimulates the baby's circulatory system and benefits her heart rate, breathing, and digestion. American researchers have shown that full-term infants who received regular massage gained more weight and went to sleep more quickly, and that massage also helped premature infants increase their weight more quickly. Baby massage is an excellent way for fathers to connect with their infants as mothers do when they are breast-feeding.

Preparing to massage
• Make sure you are relaxed and your baby is receptive — perhaps after nursing or bath time.
• Plan to spend 15 uninterrupted minutes with your baby. Put on some soothing music; turn off the phone.
• Warm the room and your hands. Ideally, baby will be naked, although you can massage through clothing. If baby is naked, keep a towel nearby for accidents.
• You may use a mild baby oil or lotion to reduce friction against baby's skin.
• Use a light touch to begin, and gradually increase pressure as baby becomes more comfortable.
• Use fingertips and palms.
• Draw baby's attention to the part of the body you are massaging. As you stroke her face, for example, smile at her and say "Relax your cheeks." You will be helping your child learn to consciously release her tension, and associate your touch with positive feelings.
• Most newborns adore massage, but around four or five months, as they become more active, some no longer enjoy it. Take your cues from your child.
• Remember that there is no right or wrong way to massage your child, as long as you proceed gently and with patience.

Basic techniques for massage
Face: With the thumbs, make a smile on the upper lip and then the lower. Massage temples. Walk your fingers across the forehead.

Chest: With both hands together at the centre of the chest, push out to the sides, following the rib cage, as if you were flattening the pages of a book. Without lifting hands from the body, bring them around in a heart-shaped motion to centre again.

Arms: Lift each arm and stroke the armpit a few times. Gently squeeze and turn baby's arm, from shoulder to hand.

Stomach: Using the outside of each hand, make paddling strokes on baby's tummy, one hand following the other, as if you were a water wheel scooping water toward yourself. Walk your fingertips across baby's tummy from right to left.

Legs: Roll the legs between your hands from knee to ankle. Knead each leg, squeezing gently.

Back: Start with both hands together at the top of the back, at right angles to the spine. Move your hands back and forth, in opposite directions, going down the back to the bottoms, then up to the shoulders, and back down again.

Excerpted from Growing with Your Child: Pre-Birth to Age 5 edited by Christine Langlois. Copyright 1998 by Telemedia Communications Inc. Excerpted, with permission by Ballantine Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.