Sweet Baby Dream

Infant massage is a wonderful, loving way to welcome your baby into the world. Research shows that with regular touch babies cry less and sleep significantly better.
In "Sweet Baby Dream", Certified Infant Massage Instructor Sharon Melvin shows you how to give your baby a delightful and healthy massage.
You'll learn about the best time to massage, about the simple supplies you'll need, and about the exercises that will relax both you and your baby.
Most of all you'll discover gentle massage techniques that can have a profoundly positive effect on your baby's health and well-being.
Remember, infant massage is for healthy babies. Check with your health care provider before beginning any baby massage program.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

SHARON'S "SWEET BABY DREAM' BLOG

- a chat forum for new and expectant parents, massage professionals and
health care providers.

Welcome to my Sweet Baby Dream blog! I have created this forum to share information with you in three different sections. each of which will be updated monthly. "Touch - Did you Know?" will include news and updates from the world of research, at the same time sharing wisdom from throughout the ages as well as across cultures. "Planning and Preparing for your baby's birth" will be a place to illustrate the kinds of things parents have done or can expect as they anticipate the arrival of their little one. "Touching Stories" will be our chance to share the stories of pregnancy, birth, and babies which have moved us in some way. As I write from my experiences, teaching, and research, I invite you, the reader, to send along the experiences which have most helped and touched you as well. As the African proverb says, "It takes a village to raise a child", so let's make this sweet forum a lovely part of that.

Touch - Did you Know?

Touch is critical to our well-being. In face, it is so important that all our other senses rely on the
sense of touch for their growth and development. Much is transmitted through a touch: calm,
comfort, and communication. A touch is worth a thousand words. Touch nourishes babies like water nourishes a plant. Touch is truly life-giving. Babies who are touched thrive; touch is their
lifeline. Touch is literally our first language.

We are each truly unique. We have a unique fingerprint, a unique smell (called a chemical signature), a unique sound (our voice), and a unique touch. Your baby can tell your touch from
someone else's. In face, there are cultures that believe a baby receives different qualities
and benefits from a father's touch than from a mother's - touch is that unique.

Always remember that your touch, your voice, your chemical signature, are all more comforting
to your baby than anyone else's. Ashley Montagu, the well-known anthropologist who wrote the
ground breaking book 'Touching', states that the human baby is about 3 months short of the
gestational development of all other mammals. However, if a human baby waited another 3 months. the head would be too large to go through the birth canal. Not to mention that it would
also be very hard on a human mom to be pregnant that long!

This "gestational shortfall", if you will, makes human babies the most helpless mammal at birth.
They are totally dependent on their parents for survival. It's why the first 3-month period is
sometimes called the 4th trimester...and these months are crucial for development. When you stroke your baby's skin, messages are sent to the brain via the nervous system that tell the brain to release growth and development hormones. Also released are the hormones for relaxation and well-being, so the message is: touch away!

Planning and Preparing for Your Baby's Birth

Pregnancy is a special time in your lives. You are excited, anxious, curious...a whole range of
emotions,and you know that your baby's birth will change your lives forever.
You prepare for this event in a lot of different ways. In observing expectant couples over the
years, I've wondered why they are often moving house right around the time of their baby's
birth. And if they are not outright moving, then at least renovating, or in some other way
changing their living space. I think it might be connected to the upheaval they are feeling
over the life-shifting event about to happen.

A few years ago, in one on my infant massage classes, I met a young mom who shared with
the class that when she and her husband found out she was pregnant with their first child, they decided to move to Scotland. They followed the strong desire to be with his family and to have their first child in the land of his birth, his roots. After their little girl was born, she was having painful bowel movements and one of the nurses suggested massaging her tummy, teaching them
one of the universal baby massage strokes, sometimes called 'the water wheel'.
It worked very well, so well, in fact, that when their next child was born back in Canada, the
young mom enrolled in a baby massage class to learn more.

This story of moving to Scotland illustrates a very dramatic change for the celebration of a birth, but many couples choose to prepare and change in smaller ways, like simply upgrading their living space to accommodate the growth in their family. These undertakings are all part of the nesting energy, part of acknowledging the change in the lives of expectant parents. And so it is
that many couples find themselves with tiny babes in arms, tiptoeing around boxes. But it all
usually turns out and everyone adjusts. Life has shifted, but in a fabulous way...and goes on.

Touching Stories

After class one day a few years ago, one of my Tai Chi students told me that she needed to have
an operation. She said that when it came time for the procedure, she would visualize her mother's hands holding her. "They were full of healing, my mother's hands," she said. So
convinced of this was she, that when her brother had needed an operation, she also told him to
visualize their mother's hands. To hear this story of the healing, comforting power of touch, I was moved by this woman's remembrance of her mother's hands, of the healing power she felt
they had.

After this conversation, I went on to teach my next class, which happened to be baby massage.
Something amazing happened at that class. As we went around the circle, each parent sharing
the past week, one young mom told us that her daughter, a cute little 3-month old, loved to hold her hands. Another young mom added, "Yes, I know. Sometimes there I am, my arm hanging
over the crib, so that my daughter can hold my hand". This was the first time I had heard young
moms talking about something like this in class and it gave me goose bumps. What an incredible
synchronistic moment. Were these two seemingly separate stories just coincidence or were they
part of the great mystery of life? Either way, it was beautiful...a wonderful and powerful reminder of the importance of touch.
From : http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=4558254134033749733