Help manage postnatal emotions!
Infant massage
You get two for the price of one! Care for yourself and that cute baby!
Are you a new mom wanting to enhance your relationship with your new baby? Do you wish you could help both your mood and your baby’s mood at the same time?
Your baby is finally here; you are learning every day what it is to be a parent. Perhaps you are experiencing emotional highs and lows you have never felt before. Perhaps extreme exhaustion from lack of sleep. Perhaps you had infertility treatments and are coping with the myriad of feelings accompanying those treatments. Perhaps you had a previous miscarriage or abortion and feelings from this experience intrude on your daily life with your baby. Maybe you had an idea of how you thought the birth of your child might take place, but it did not go as you had planned. So, you are grappling with re-framing your understanding of what was possible at that point in time.
Whatever your individual situation, you could be feeling extreme love, peppered with depression and anger. Maybe you are feeling mostly depressed, anxious and angry. In this case, you need to give yourself the gift of self-care and see a local doctor and therapist.
In all of these emotions, perhaps you are concerned that you are not bonding with your infant. Some people have the mistaken impression that human bonding occurs all at once, with sort of a single, initial, imprinting. This is not the case, LOL, we are not ducks! Human bonding (or attachment) develops as a result of a reciprocal, interactive process on a daily basis over time. Human bonding develops in the context of daily accessibility to a responsive primary caregiver over time. And it not a virtual experience! It is a body-based, biological and emotional experience involving touching, seeing, smelling the primary caregiver on a consistent basis.
You might be experiencing some depression, feeling this physical and emotional care-giving is a large responsibility! And it is!
Did you know that pre-and-post-natal massage has been validated as a treatment to help ease pre and postpartum depression in mothers? See this article from Massachusetts General Hospital and also Dr. Tiffany Fields’ studies for a thorough discussion of the clinical evidence. So give yourself permission to get some massages.
Did you know that infants can be depressed? And that infant massage can help a mom regulate an infant’s emotions and increase bonding behaviors?
So infant massage is good for both mom & baby’s mood. Here is the link to some studies about infant emotional development and the positive effects of massage.
There are many opportunities for classes in Infant Massage near you. Classes are usually held at local hospitals, midwifery offices, yoga studios, and massage schools. Make the effort to connect with one of these places, get out to a class, use this opportunity to inexpensively and consistently use the power of safe touch to help yours and your baby’s mood at the same time!
Here’s to happier mothering!
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