CONFERENCE 2002
"Thanks to the gift of Vimala McClure's work in founding the International Association of Infant Massage, I was trained and certified as an infant massage instructor in 1988. I started teaching infant massage at a busy metropolitan hospital in Dayton, Ohio in 1988. For several years, I had worked as a nurse in all the areas of obstetrical care, and had just become a licensed massage therapist. Teaching infant massage was one of those ultimate joys for me! All the benefits that you have been hearing about massage with babies were just beginning to become understood back then. It was very exciting and rewarding to offer families this ancient loving art, and see how the parents began to feel more capable, more attuned to their babies. The families shared stories with me of how much fun it was. Their babies were crying less, sleeping better, gaining weight, and were more alert and interactive. Family life became even more enjoyable.
It became clear to me, though, that new parents needed slightly different information about massaging their newborn babies, and babies in the neonatal intensive care unit responded more positively if I went about giving them massage in a modified way. For the tired, overwhelmed and sleep-deprived parents, the information had to be short, simple, and effective, and I had to reach them before or shortly after leaving the hospital. For the babies, I had to take into consideration their need to heal, grow and develop, settle into the outside world, and that some newborns are not medically stable, some are born prematurely, and some newborns have experienced exposure to drugs that can affect their nervous systems and make them more vulnerable to almost any stimulation.
After studying the research and taking additional training in massage with handicapped infants, in 1989, I began developing a program so simple, so protective, so solid and effective that a new parent could learn about crying and time out signals, how to comfort their baby, listening skills, and a set of massage strokes based on research that promotes digestion, elimination (yes, gas, too), weight gain, deeper sleep, improved immune system functioning, and bonding. Besides all that, the babies enjoy it and it is fun for the family. This program is the "Baby's First Massage Program." Over 2500 instructors have been trained; the program is in many hospitals, private practices, high schools and communities all over the U.S.A. and in some military hospitals overseas."
