Tag: infant massage

The following is a guest post courtesy of Infant Massage USA for API’s Use Nurturing Touch blog carnival.

A touch, a look, a gesture… are encounters of love where the magic of innocence and candor unite. Mothers, fathers and babies are immersed in an atmosphere of tenderness and simplicity, in which voices, whispers, songs, looks and movements are party to a loving and eternal relationship.

It is an instant that will prolong and impregnate the cellular memory of the skin that has been touched in a special way, making that moment unique and repeatable in time and space until the end of life.

Infant massage is the live voice of humanity, of the love for one another, of the complexity of a moment’s intimacy. Its fundamental objective: love, affection and the forming of bonds, so that the children of the world may be loved, valued and respected. Its essence is so noble that beyond all these gifts, it has added value for the cognitive, emotional and psychomotor development of the child.

During the massage the baby’s senses are alert. When she hears the sound that indicates the beginning of the massage, she is able to anticipate the response. The emotion produced by the voices of the mothers and fathers that sing or speak to her are transformed into movement. The aroma of space, mother and father, and of the oil being rubbed on the body, enrich the baby’s sense of smell. The skin, as a medium receptor of sensations and perceptions, activates other mechanisms, always with positive results, which improve or regulate the immune, digestive, respiratory and endocrine systems. The mother’s only objective and interest within her visual field is to make meaningful all that is taking place.

This systematic set of actions will unleash – like the expansive waves of concentric circles made by a pebble thrown into the water – processes of attention, concentration and memory; the capacity to anticipate events, knowledge of her bodily schema and, later, bodily consciousness. A whole that projects a child that is emotionally harmonious and committed, with herself, her family and her society.

Lic. Virginia Latouche de Levy, CIMI/CEIM
Caracas- Venezuela

This post is part of the 2010 API Principles of Parenting blog carnival, a series of monthly parenting blog carnivals, hosted by API Speaks.

The mothers of India have given the world one of the most important parenting tools known to humanity: infant massage. It is probably hard to imagine raising a baby without this gentle, everyday experience, but in some western cultures (particularly the U.S.) it is just being discovered! In her book Infant Massage: A Handbook for Loving Parents, American author Vimala McClure describes her visits to India in the early 1970’s and witnessing mothers all over India giving their babies a daily massage. She was fascinated by this beautiful ritual and soon learned that it was much more than just a sweet gift to sooth a baby, it was a deep spiritual, physical, and emotional connection that had tremendous benefits to the whole family.

Of the five major senses of smell, taste, sight, hearing, and touch have you ever thought about which of these senses are critical for a human being’s survival? Touch is the only sense that a human being cannot live without. Yet in many modern cultures, parents provide very little touch to their children. Infants in the U.S. often spend a majority of their lives going from container to container (i.e. baby seats, infant carriers, car seats), rather than being picked up and held or receiving the nurturing touch necessary for healthy emotional and neurological development. Babies are now experiencing plagiocephaly or “flat head syndrome” because of spending more time on their backs in cribs, swings and carseats.
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