What is infant massage

While the practice of infant massage has been an integral part of many traditional cultures, it hasn’t been the norm in some more westernised places in the world. Infant massage is gaining more awareness these days due to growing body of research corroborating its benefits. It can play an important role in your relationships with your twins, and add invaluable benefits to your parenthood.

As I’m finishing my training as a certified infant massage instructor (CIMI) with the International Association of Infant Massage (IAIM), I can genuinely vouch numerous benefits this incredible practice has to offer parents and babies, especially twin parents.

Why is infant massage important

Massaging your baby can help deepen your connection with them. As we massage a baby, we gain a better understanding of their cues, needs, and behavioural states, which allows us to respond better to their needs. The massage asks us, the adults, to tune in to baby’s experience during the massage, how are they doing physically, but also how are they feeling with our gentle, loving touch?

The massage has numerous physical benefits, including: improving the digestive and respiratory systems, promoting better and deeper sleep, releasing tension, promoting bonding and secure attachment, relief from gas and colic pain, and increasing neurological pathways - meaning, faster transmission of information (kind of making our babies smarter!).

Infant massage and premature babies

There have been more and more evidence of the impact infant massage can have on premature babies. See research 1, 2, 3, to name a few.

Premature babies often do not enjoy prolonged skin-to-skin time with their parents, as they need to be in an incubator for days or weeks after birth.

The impact on their development, and the relationship with the parents can be great.

Infant massage offer incredible opportunists to strengthen the bond between parents and babies. The massage allow parents to support their babies while at NICU, connect with each baby on a deep and intimate level.

The loving touch helps babies relax, reduce stress and anxiety which can rise in the NICU environment, and keep the parents-babies connection.

Research conducted at NICU on several babies showed significant impact on weight gain, reduction in infections, better success in breastfeeding, ongoing improvement in development, and therefore, quicker discharge.

How does infant massage relate to bonding

According to many researches on the benefits of infant massage, the impact on the parent-baby relationships is extensive. Parents reporting feeling more relaxed, less anxious, and closer to their babies and understanding their needs better. During the massage, long periods of eye contact and skin-to-skin opportunities promote the releasing of oxytocin, the love hormone, as well dopamine and endorphin.

The whole process promotes relaxation, slowing down, and tuning in to the moment. This allows parents to take a break from the day’s demands and chores, be present, connect to their breath, to baby’s rhythm, and invest energy, both mentally and emotionally, in this moment alone.

Many parents report feeling elevated after the session, in a deeper state of inner peace and calm.

For twin parents, who’s days are filled with many ongoing tasks, this can be an invitation to shift gear, slow down, and engage in caring moments that will fill up their tanks, and their babies’.

Twin Infant Massage Clasees Begin in 2025

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Twin Infant Massage Clasees Begin in 2025 〰️

Twins and infant massage

For many twin parents who had to be separated from their babies at NICU, the opportunity to build a strong relationship is invaluable. The infant massage sessions can help parents bond with each baby individually, as well as recover from birth trauma.

As many people can tell about their own experience after receiving a good massage, a general feeling of ease, peace and calmness lasts for a while after the massage finishes.

The same benefits can be gained from doing messages with our little ones. the gentle, meaningful, and loving strokes help both baby and parent relax. This might seem like an unattainable luxury for twin parents, yet it is.

Massage can be offered during a nappy change, in the bath, on the mat, in your lap, or just before bed. While a whole body massage might be hard to achieve in the fist weeks, short yet meaningful strokes of various body areas (limbs, face, tummy, back…) can provide both parent and baby moments of intimacy, closeness and love.

When possible, the one-on-one interactions can reduce the mental overload of multitasking, allowing twin parents to decrease mental stimulation. And in the depth of twin postpartum, these can be like oxygen tanks that keep us going for longer, with a smile in our face.

Postpartum and infant massage

Parents’ frequent gentle touch of their babies can help reduce anxiety and stress, thus improving maternal mental health.

Recent research from 2023 showed: ”Maternally-administered IM (Infant Massage) may benefit mothers of preterm infants by reducing anxiety, stress, depressive symptoms, and by improving maternal-infant interactions in the short-term.”

While for some twin parents this can be somewhat challenging to achieve, beginning with short massage sessions can pave the path towards better maternal mental health. The sheer intention to engage with massage can automatically allow twin parents to invest short, yet frequent time periods in the process, thus consistently raising and improving parental mental health and well-being.

Twin infant massage classes will begin in 2025 in Auckland, NZ. If you are interested, please contact me at smadar@twinfullife.com

If you want to learn more about how I can help you and your family during your postpartum period, book a free 15-minute discovery call today.

Or book your Postpartum Support package below!