to know your baby’s body will empower you for when the baby becomes ill. It’s easy to feel intimidated by the apparent fragility of those little bodies. With daily massage, however, you will know how yielding your baby’s tummy is to regular touch and be able to identify when it is hard, distended or tender. Equally, you will instinctively learn the skin’s natural colour and tone whilst you massage it, and therefore become more alert to rashes.
how massage increases baby’s immunity
The constitutional benefits of touch are pre-programmed by Mother Nature. Every time you touch your baby, you create a virtuous circle whereby you pick up the bacteria living on your child’s skin and pass it into your own system. Your adult system can easily develop antibodies against these bacteria that then pass into your breast milk, protecting your baby and boosting her own natural immune system.
Many of my mothers like to sing songs, rhymes and lullabies whilst they’re massaging the babies, which is a lovely form of sound therapy. The classic songs ‘You are my sunshine/My only sunshine’ and Summertime are favourites, but I know some mums who swear by Don McLean’s Wonderful Baby, not only because of the joyous baby-oriented lyrics, but also because of the many verses!
Best of all, maintain eye contact while you massage. Before you know it, your little butterball will be wriggling off to play some more and you’ll consider yourself lucky to get her nappy on. So treasure these little rituals while you can and you’ll have the memories to cherish forever.
tips from mothers
I receive a lot of correspondence from mothers who follow the gentle birth method – either through my clinic or the book – and many of them stay in contact throughout the first year. Over the years, the tips I have received from these mothers have formed a massive store of information, some of which I will scatter throughout this book. Here is a collection of tips from Sonia Revelli, mother of four children.
Baby stretches to prevent colic. Sonia has found these to be invaluable and they can be done at every nappy change. However, avoid doing these immediately after a feed, as the baby may regurgitate.
Method
Stretch the legs out first, then flex them at the knees and push the little thighs and legs back to the abdomen. Stretch and flex about four or five times.
Then bring the little legs straight up and down by flexing both legs and extending onto the baby’s tummy as much as possible. Repeat five to six times.
Then cross the baby’s ankles, left over right, and flex both thighs onto the tummy. Repeat by crossing the ankles, this time right over left.
This becomes a lovely routine to do at all nappy changes.
Try not to breastfeed your baby lying down. Sonia feels that this predisposes the baby to getting glue ear, due to milk tracking up the Eustachian tube, which joins the ear to the throat.
If the baby has a cold, you might find the ‘Mouche-Bébé’ nose-blow device very useful. A French invention, it is a suction device with a reservoir which you can use to suction the nasal passages to aid breathing, and help the baby to sleep (see Resources for details).
If your baby has a chest infection, try using Moxa sticks. Cover the baby’s legs with a cotton cloth so the skin isn’t heated directly. Gently warm the outsides of the baby’s legs with heated Moxa sticks, held at a safe distance from the baby’s skin. Move the sticks up and down. This is amazing at clearing the nasal passages and lungs. [Moxa sticks are used in Chinese medicine and have excellent success rates. I use them a lot on pregnant mothers with breech babies. They have a 77 per cent success rate in turning the baby.]
TOUCH BONDING FOR PREMATURE BABIES
Touch bonding is never more important than with premature babies. How much you can lay on hands is, of course, determined by how early the baby came. But even if your child is in an incubator, there is still so much you can do to communicate and build a bond. For some parents, their child is so tiny the mother’s little finger dwarfs the baby’s hand, but no matter how small the baby, her instinct will still be to hold on to that finger as tightly as she can. In fact, it is months before babies develop the ability to actually let go, so you can maintain physical contact – albeit limited – for as long as you both want to.
Another comforting touch is placing the flat of your hand on the baby’s tummy, avoiding the umbilical stump. Your warmth and the weight of your hand will be registered by the baby’s body, and there’s even evidence that suggests the baby will recognize the hand as yours – doctors have found that unborn babies kick more vigorously when their father’s hand is placed on the mother’s bump, as opposed to, say, the doctor’s, so there’ll be even more recognition with direct skin-to-skin contact.
Stroking the ‘Third Eye’
Try very gently stroking the area between the eyebrows in a downwards direction – stroking downwards is very sedating. This space relates to the ‘third eye’, and stroking it can invoke deep mental relaxation. In Ayurveda, there is a renowned massage which involves pouring warm oil onto the third eye for up to an hour. It is noted for bringing about a profound sense of peace, and I have found this to be true for the modified stroking variation I use to settle fractious babies and to calm anxious pregnant mothers.
Stroking the Aura
You could also gently mould your hand in a cup shape around your baby’s head and stroke her hair with your thumb. Then move your hand up to an inch away from the baby’s head and make a series of long strokes, starting from the nose and sweeping to the back of the head or as far as you can go. This method, where you do not need to actually touch the baby’s head, makes it ideal to calm premature babies. This is known as ‘stroking the aura’.
You can also use this method to take the heat off the baby’s head if you notice that her head is hot. Repeat as above, without touching the baby’s head or neck, and stroke in one direction only as this flow is very relaxing for the baby.
Sceptical? If you relax and close your eyes and do it on yourself for a minute or two, you should be able to register an almost tingly sensation, like an electric current. Do this for about five to twenty minutes, or as long as you like. It’s a loving, rhythmic sequence which can really get you involved with your baby’s physicality, until such time as the baby is ready for full-on cuddles.
‘Kangaroo Care’
When the baby can come out of the incubator for periods, take every opportunity to enjoy skin-on-skin touch. If you have been expressing your milk, you can now try direct breastfeeding. Equally, the father can try giving the baby a bottle of your milk. Both of you should try as much as possible to feed the baby without your shirts on as it’s important that the baby can smell you and learn to associate your smell with loving touch. Remember, there are lots of bright lights around incubators – the baby may even have worn goggles – so she won’t have terribly strong visual impressions of you. But she will have been able to smell you, so the closer she can actually get to you and your scent, the more relaxed she will be.
This intensive form of touch bonding is known as ‘kangaroo care’. It has been proven to bring remarkable positive responses in premature babies. So take every opportunity to hold your baby against your chest. Let her smell your skin, nuzzle into your neck, sleep on your tummy, look up into your eyes. Don’t put her down until the nurses are practically tugging her free. Every minute of skin-on-skin will make a difference.
Case History: Kangaroo
