Classes are offered through group instruction and consist of multiple sessions. Susan may customize the instructions to meet the needs of each baby and family. The average class is about 60 minutes, depending on the babies. It will cover:

• Easy to follow step-by-step massage instructions
• History, theory, and practice of infant masage
• Bonding and attachment relaxation techniques for babies and parents
• How to vary massage for the growing toddler / child
• Customized instruction: prenatal, prematurity, at-risk, teen-parenting, disabilities, sleep-issues, colic and intestinal difficulties, (gas and constipation)

Importance of Infant Massage

Early psychological and sensory input is essential in facilitating the development of all infants. Infant Massage is a preventative program that provides a loving touch right from the start. Understanding the benefits and beginning touch early in life can improve the quality of parenting and promotes the well being of the infant.

 Infant Massage contains such critical elements of bonding as eye-to-eye contact, smiling, soothing vocal sounds, loving touch, caressing, smell, and mutual interaction. Studies show that bonding increases a parent's feeling of attachment as well as the desire to nurture and care for their infant.

 These interactions "increase pleasurable biochemical in the child's brain, thereby strengthening neural pathways associated with pleasure and motivation; it strengthens the parent's bond to the baby and the baby's attachment to the parent."  

Benefits for Baby

• Creates a loving, intimate communication                      
• Enhances bonding and attachment 
• Promotes social, emotional and cognitive development
• Helps baby relax and releases tensions of daily stimuli
• Decreases irritability and excessive crying
• Reduces gas and colic; intestinal difficulties
• Regulates behavioral states and promotes sleep
• Strengthens and regulates primary organ systems (ie: respiratory, circulatory, nervous, musculature, digestive and endocrine).

Benefits for Parents

• Promotes better understanding of infant cues
• Enhances communication and emotional ties
•  Increases confidence and handling skills
• Provides quality one-on-one interaction
• Helps parents to unwind and relax
• Increases vocalization and direct eye-contact
• Gives fathers a special time to connect and bond

Premature Babies & NICU

• Facilitates weight gain in preterm newborns
• Reduces stress hormones 
• Counterbalances pain responses
• Increases stable state organization
• Promotes more mature motor behavior
• Improves immune function/improves gastric motility
• improves clinical and developmental scores
• Helps reduce hospital stay
• Provides greater parent involvement and satisfaction
• Promotes better practices for improved family-centered care

Click here to see prices on the Service page.