The many benefits of baby massage! Interview with Helen Thompson

 In this week's episode I am talking Baby Massage with Helen Thompson.

Helen Thompson has her NNEB (UK) Nursery Nursing qualification and has worked with babies and children over many years.

She also has qualifications in Infant Massage and Tummy Time and has experience in areas including Educational Kinesiology and Brain Gym.

She supports first time mums through her wonderful podcast, First Time Mum's Chat, which comes out every Wednesday at 22.00 GMT, and is passionate about helping parents through their journey as new parents.

We are talking about the many benefits of baby-massage;

From helping you bond with your child to helping you, and your little one, relax.
We also touch on whether using essential oils and diffusers is a good idea and many, many other things.

 Go to https://www.mybabymassage.net/healthypostnatal to find out more about baby massage and access Helen's FREE video introduction

Her website
Instagram
And Facebook

In the news this week; This little thing that the UK government snuck out in amongst all the "who will be the next PM" chaos. Just in case you thought the restrictions on abortion could only happen in other countries, the UK government has now decided it doesn't need to be placed in the Human Right's statement either. This is all part of a rather worrying trend where politicians, of all parties and all sexes, are happy to slowly strip women's independence away from them. From Republicans in the US voting against contraceptives to the elected officials in Scotland, at a national and local level, deciding to go back to the puritan approach of the 1950s and banning women working in strip clubs.
This stuff is something to get active about and write to your representative.

Remember to follow us on Instagram and Facebook for the competitions, wisdom and cute videos. And, of course, you can always find us on our YouTube channel if you like your podcast in video form with little pictures :)

Visit healthypostnatalbody.com and get 3 months completely FREE access. No sales, no commitment, no BS.

Email peter@healthypostnatalbody.com if you have any questions or comments 

Playing us out this week; "Can you feel it" by EILOH

Transcript

Peter Lap: Welcome to the Healthy Post-Natal Body podcast. It’s your Post-Natal expert Peter Lap, as always will be me. This is the podcast for the 24th of July. And as always, you know, date before music means I have a guest on and we're talking baby massage, infant massage with Helen Thompson, who is wonderful in explaining the many benefits of baby massage. Just a little note, I have a bit of a call today and I only recorded this interview earlier today. So if my sound is a bit more muffled than usual, that is just because of the sniffles. Anyways, it's a wonderful chat. She very kindly gave up half an hour of her time. So without further ado, here we go. So when we're talking baby massage, what exactly are we talking about? I think you're not talking about deep tissue sports massage? 

Helen Thompson: No, certainly not. Because obviously, it's a very small baby and you don't want to massage them too hard. It's a very soft and gentle touch. But babies love to be touched, as you probably know. And it's the first thing that when babies come out of the womb, that they're actually touched and cuddled. And they actually thrive on touch. And it's just a very soft, gentle touch for the baby. And they love having massages like you and I do. But we just don't do it as hard. We don’t want to put the pressure too hard. 

Peter Lap: Yes, because there's a big difference, isn't it between baby massage, which you're talking about? And a trend that I find slightly worrying that's been picking up is a baby adjustment and chiropractor for babies, you're talking about nice rub downs and all that. 

Helen Thompson: Yes, I am. I'm not disputing chiropractic. I don't want to go down that route. I personally don't like them myself. And I've had chiropractic myself and I immediately tense up. Somebody's going to crunch me, you can set up and baby massage is all about relaxation for the mother as well as for the baby. Because there are some times when mothers have Post-Natal depression, or they don't want to touch your baby, they don't want to communicate with their baby, they don't want to connect with their baby. So baby massage actually gives them those tools to be able to touch and connect with the baby and it's something I added beginning, we always asked the baby's permission. And so many people say to me, but how do you ask a baby's permission? And babies communicate to us, they communicate to us in so many different ways. They communicate through their eyes, they communicate by their body movement, they communicate by crying, and they communicate in so many different ways. So if your baby's looking at you, and really excited and kicking their legs and getting excited, well then they obviously do want to be touched and do want to be massaged. So that's certainly do it. I don't want to do it when they are upset or crying. There is a rule on that, if your baby's got colic, and you know, your baby's got colic and they're very upset and distress, well then massaging their tummy if they are crying, might actually help them to relieve all those bubbles and that trapped. But that's the only time when we would massage a baby if they have colic and we want to release a collic. Other than that, we do not, ever baby's crying and they are squinting their eyes, if you ask them for a massage and there's, they're looking upset and they're not looking at you. They're looking away from you than we don't touch them because that's them telling us that they don't want to be touched. And I always stress that because it's so important that we feel our babies respect. 

Peter Lap: That's fascinating, isn't it? Because I know some people, myself included, in the older days my old self a 15 year ago self so to speak. Well that sounds insane. Babies can't give permission, but we expect it from dogs and from puppies. As in I've got three dogs, One is sound asleep on the bed. And there's another one lying next to me. And if I want to grab their ball, sometimes they will be okay with it. And other times not so much. There's a lot of nonverbal communication and with a dog, you would go, he doesn't like to be touched, with a baby we are almost expected that you can force the relaxation, as in the baby's telling, actually, I am crying to sleep right now, I would crying to be left alone, because that's usually when babies are going to do, eat, poop and sleep. So if they say this is my time to sleep, then I suppose the baby massage is just not on. So then it just help. It helps you to reach your baby better. Is that what you are saying?

Helen Thompson: Yes, I was going to bring up a point and what you said just, about the baby sleeping. I know the basics, because I come from a childcare background. And I know the basic from the baby message. But your babies have a lot of different states of when they're asleep, and when they're awake and when they're alert. And the best time to actually message your baby is when they're in that quiet alert state. And that quiet alert state is maybe when they've just woken up, and they're looking around. They're looking for something, looking at you, wanting your attention, wanting some love and communication. That's the time to do it. If you do it in any other state, like when they're drowsiness, if they're trying to close their eyes. That's obviously not a good time, as you say, the saying No, it's my time to go to sleep. Now it's me time, I don't want you around, I just want to go nights. I just wanted to go to sleep or whatever. And I think those states are really important to know and as a parent, you will get to know what those states are. But that's the key. And it's also very good for actually to help us a relaxation to help them with sleep as well. Because if your baby stressed and you're stressed, if you just take a big deep breath in and both relax well, then your baby will sense that you're relaxed when you touch them and say would you like a massage? They'll sense, if you're relaxed, or if you're not relaxed, they'll pick that up. So that's another point to remember is baby massage as well, that it's great for relaxation, not only for the baby, but also for the mother. It's bonding for the mother. It's bonding for the baby, is communication for both the baby and the mother, is getting to know your baby's cues, as you mentioned, and getting to understand your baby a more. It also helps as I mentioned in sleep and melatonin. I don't know if you know the hormone melatonin. It's a hormone that regulates a person's body clock. So that actually helps with some sleep as well. 

Peter Lap: That was really interesting. Like you mentioned, it helps you relax as a parent, especially when we're talking. I've done a lot of stuff recently on Post-Natal anxiety, Post-Natal depression. And I know, it annoys some listeners, but I like to do it, because it drives the point home. It was something Cesar Millan the dog whisperer said, a long time ago. So when you're dealing with a puppy or a stressed human being something like that, the one thing you yourself cannot be is stressed and anxious, because you pass that energy on. So learning how to switch that off, becomes a very important part of your skills, and that in turn, will help you cope with your Post-Natal anxiety and Post-Natal depression. So it sounds to me like what you're saying is okay, it's not for people listening, who suffer from Post-Natal anxiety and depression, depending on of course, the severity of it, because I know that there's some really bad cases. I'm not trying to minimize it. But it's the getting yourself in a state, and the realization might not happen for yourself automatically. Just because you're massaging the baby. You have to make a conscious effort too indeed like you said, take a deep breath. Relax, slow down and pass that Energy on to the baby. Before it can become a two way street. 

Helen Thompson: Yes. Because if you're touching your baby, they'll pick that up. But if you're touching a baby and you're relaxing and breathing in and being calm, well, then that will pass it on, and it'll be beneficial to both of you. The key is, it's beneficial to both, it's not just beneficial to you as a mother. But it also got to be beneficial to the baby as well. 

Peter Lap: Yes, exactly. And then it becomes a mindfulness thing almost, as in, you have to be aware in the moment, you have to focus on what you're doing. And I don't mean, focus on going from the little finger to the big finger, to the thumb, I mean being present in the moment. That's what I said, because it comes with what you're doing. So it's interesting when you talk about the ideal state for your baby to be in, when it comes to starting the massage, because obviously, there are alot of baby massage classes, at least in Edinburgh, there are tons of these things. And in the UK, pretty much anytime of day, you can just book a class and you sit in a room with five or 10 other moms and babies and you're rubbing your kid, so to speak. So how do you then prepare your baby so that it's in the right state? 

Helen Thompson: Well, what I always say because I've done both, I've done group courses, and I've done one on one courses as well. Of course, it's people as well. And what I always say to the mother, is if your baby's upset, or if your baby's sleeping, or if your babies to stress, don't massage them. And because I actually teach my massage on the doll, because I'd love to massage babies. But unfortunately, I'm trying to teach parents how to massage with babies not to massage your babies. I would love to massage a baby's but for insurance reasons, I don't do that. But I always have a doll. I always have spare dolls. And I always say to the mother, look, if your baby's not in the right space at the moment, please don't feel that you are going to miss out. You can either let your baby sleep or you can relax your baby by breastfeeding them or bottle feeding them or doing whatever you need it or changing their nappy or do whatever you need to do to make the baby calm. And you can always watch and observe what other people are doing. Or watch me, you don't have to physically feel that when you're in a class, you absolutely have to massage your baby. And I always stress that to mums, because as you said, if your baby is not in that state, there's no point in massaging them because they're not going to enjoy it and they're not going to get any benefit out of it. So just allow yourself to give yourself the space to relax, both of you relax you and your baby and just watch and observe what other people are doing. And if it's a zoom course that I put over, if I'm doing a zoom course I would say the same thing two months, say look, if you need to go off and feed your baby. Don't worry, I'll send you the link to where you left off, so you know what to do. That's always what I say to moms and it's an important point too, if you've brought up that, if they're not ready, just watch and observe the class without necessarily having to massage your baby. There are umpteen things you can be doing like cuddling your baby or rocking your baby to sleep or whatever you need to do, you can still observe what other people are doing and you can still learn the strokes that want to do.

Peter Lap: Because that's the thing I suppose we can say this and the class is not a class, it's your learning experience. It's your teaching moment. Whereas at home you can actually put that into practice whenever the baby is ready. So the class itself is not on the island, you go to these things once a week if you can, baby massage class Tuesday afternoon three o'clock, you slept your baby halfway across town an hour away. And three o'clock on a Tuesday afternoon that we baby is quite not ready for but you get there to learn how so you can implement it on the Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, the rest of the week rather than same days. This is not a swimming lesson, you don't have to swim there. 

Helen Thompson: You can massage there and then, I'm not saying that you can't of course you can. And once your babies also got used to massage and used to having a routine of when you can do it. But when you get home, you can actually have it set up a routine of when you're going to do the massage with your baby, and they get used to that routine. And they look forward to that routine. They look forward to it, they get excited, great, it's massage time, I'm going to really enjoy this. And so does the mother because they've set the scene, the baby knows, the baby sees a little blanket going out or whatever you're going to be doing. And they're getting excited because you're rubbing your hands to massage and the baby's getting used to your cues and like yes, I'd love one or no, I don't want one. But they know when it's coming because they get used to it. 

Peter Lap: Yes, they basically pick up on all the habits, if you have the same routine, the same blanket, the same movement, the same setup and all that sort of stuff. I came across this the other day, and I'm not sure about this, to be honest, I look at the internet. And it makes me want to cry a little bit. The essential oils for baby. There was a thing, and I'm not saying that it's right or wrong, because I genuinely don't know. It just strikes me as it might not be a good idea. There was a company that sent me a link saying, Have a look at this because people every now and again asked me to sell stuff for them. I've never said yes yet. So I'm not sure why they keep emailing me. But every now and again they say can you have a look. And this was a company that is selling essential oils for baby massage, actually rub on the baby and all that. So it's not something we do, is that just baby oil itself is fine.

Helen Thompson: I've come across a lot of baby massage instructors who use essential oils, and they put a couple of drops in the sesame oil or almond oil. But I as a person, I love essential oils, but to me, baby massage is about the smell of the mother or the smell of their surroundings. And that's the point I might bring up in about the benefit. It's about babies getting to know your smell. And to me essential oils are too strong for babies. The sense of smell of essential oils are incredibly strong. And highly suggest that you don't use essential oils for babies. And even mixing them with in a carrier oil. I would also say no to and I actually had a discussion with somebody who I was training with, I've retrained was a company in the UK. And I had a chat to her about it. And when I was doing a training about essential oils, and she suggested not even a diffuser because I use diffuser all the time for me and she said even a diffuser, the baby is still ingesting that smell. And not that it's not good for babies. It's just that they're too strong for their senses. The point of massage is for you to get to know your baby smell, for your baby to get to know your smell, for you and your baby to communicate and bond with each other. So that's my own personal opinion. I feel that essential oils too strong for baby. I'm not saying you can't use oil, you can use oil. But yes, not putting essential oils in and always do a patch test, even if you're using almond oil, or sesame oil, or coconut oil or apricot oil, whatever oil you're using, always do a patch test first. Because you don't know if your baby is allergic to it, or whatever. And it's really important to do that. And to make sure they're organic and a cold pressed. Because you don't want to just go to the supermarket and get some olive oil or some almond oil because they're not cold pressed and they're not organic. Unnatural oils as well. But the essential oils, I strongly don't recommend it. I've heard a lot of people saying it's good. But I don't agree with it. 

Peter Lap: It's interesting because a while ago I did an interview with Tianu and we were talking household chemicals. And she's a lovely lady. I am a middle aged white guy as you can tell and therefore by definition, T is completely out there compared to how I was raised. T was one of the cuckoo ladies. She was one of the ladies that she's just insane. However, science is on her side and we as middle aged white guys. (Inaudible 00:20:19 – 00:20:29) and diffusers especially, just because you mentioned diffusers, we don't do them anymore. But it makes sense that around a developing infant, when we're talking babies. That a diffuser is not the best idea in the world. To have them breathing in, lavender, scented oil, and for the air wick, the glade plugin, we also don't do. But my wife has one(inaudible 00:21:06 – 00:21:14). We live in Edinburgh, you buy it in London, they ship it up to you, and it cost an absolute fortune. But even those things, they are organic essential oils and all that. But I personally wouldn't have anything puffing out near a baby. I thought it was interesting that there is a market out there now for this stuff. Because people are recognizing that women now are very keen to connect more and more wwith their child, with wisdom infant. And dads are as well, to be fair, I'm not knocking at, the dads can of course do baby massage as well. 

Helen Thompson: Definitely. That's so important, because they need to bond as well. It's not just a mom that bond to this the baby, the father's do as well. 

Peter Lap: Yes, exactly. So you run these classes, and you run some via zoom as well. The vast majority of people that come to you will be mums?

Helen Thompson: Yes. 

Peter Lap: Have you seen an increase recently in the number of men that also attend? Or is it still one of those is mainly women and they showed the husband how it works?

Helen Thompson: I think it's mainly women and they show their husband how it works. But there are some classes where the husband might come along for the first 10 minutes to see what it's all about. And some of them stay. Some of them don't. But yes, it is generally women. And I think although my main advertising is towards women, I still feel very strongly that, men are just as important as well, because a lot of the time, it's a good thing for men to do because they feel left out, if the is mothers breastfeeding, or the mother is the one putting the baby to sleep because she's either breastfeeding, the dad feels left out because they don't have that bonding connection with the baby in the same respect as a mother does. So that's where a routine might be good for the dad as well. I believe in incorporating both. It's for both parents, not just for the moms. But as you asked, most of my classes are moms. 

Peter Lap: I suppose baby massage in improving the bonding experience. Makes bedtime easier for dads because when you're talking about Dad putting baby to bed. What I hear a lot is parents saying actually the child will settle for me but won't settle for my husband. And that I suppose baby massage and that's linking improving connection between the dad and the child through baby massage. 

Helen Thompson: Because it also helps with the child's brain development as well. So if your dad's doing it, it helps all that and brain development and teasing and everything like that. It is a good connection to have for dad because if the baby's teasing, and the mother is really stressed and the mother doesn't want to do it, well the dad can just give the baby massage for teasing And that's giving the mother a break. And it's giving the data chance to bond with the baby as well. 

Peter Lap: I never even consider that, to be honest. That makes complete sense to do so. So when you're talking about the movement patterns, and all that, there is a lot of YouTube stuff about baby massage. Because there is always an awful lot of stuff. So how do you filter through the nonsense? Because like I said, there's a lot on YouTube, and a lot of stuff I come across on YouTube is not really that reliable. So is it again, find an expert in your area? Find an expert online, such as yourself or just following random YouTube stuff okay, for babies?

Helen Thompson: I think that's a very interesting question. Because I think you do need to make sure that who's massaging, who's teaching you to massage your baby, is qualified and does have qualifications. And, you don't know whether somebody on a YouTube video is qualified, you don't know that. And I guess with me, you don't know if I'm qualified or not. But I have got the certificates. And I've actually done two courses in baby massage. I did one in Australia, and then I retrained with a company in the UK. So I just want you to get a bit more understanding about it. So you just need to do your research and check out the people who you're seeing on YouTube and checking out to see what qualifications they do have, or maybe just emailing them and asking them advice, that way you're getting to know if they do know their stuff or not. That's what I would be doing, and seeing if they have any other social media outputs, like Facebook, Instagram. And if they've had any testimonials from other people and things, that's what I would suggest to do. Because there are a lot of cowboys out there, who aren't qualified and, do matters. But then having said that, there are midwives out there who, have done a very basic course of baby massage. And if I saw a midwife doing it, I'd have more faith in a midwife, because I know that they've got the background with babies. 

Peter Lap: Well, yes, I suppose they can do at least better. Reading the signs or all that.

Helen Thompson: People always asked me that question. And it's something that I always say just make sure that you check out what they've got. And if they say they've qualified with a certain company, check out that company to make sure that the company know what they're talking about, as well. So baby massage got so many wonderful benefits. I could sit here all night talking to you about all the benefits of baby massage. But it's got so many benefits. And I think it's so wonderful for the baby to connect and bond with you. And you learn so much from your baby by massaging them and you're teaching them so much as well. You can sing when you're massaging your baby, you can sing them little rhymes when you're massaging them and you're teaching them language, you're teaching them how to communicate. You're teaching them verbal cues. There are so many so many wonderful benefits other than bonding, bonding is a good one. But I wanted to mention the other one because we've been talking a lot about bonding. But there's so many other benefits out there too for baby massage. 

Peter Lap: Was there anything else you wanted to mention on the with regards to benefits and where people can find you and all that.

Helen Thompson: Yes, I'll just mention a few other benefits and then I'll let you know where people can find me. As I mentioned at the beginning, you were asking me about essential oils, that was going to bring into the senses about how baby massage can help with the senses because I mentioned smell, by talking about the essential oils but it's also good for vision because you're connecting with your baby, you're encouraging your baby to look at you and your baby to watching, what you're doing. The other one is hearing, because when you're talking to your baby and singing to your baby and having communicating with them, they're hearing your voice and they're getting they're getting used to language and words. And you mentioned touch as well. And taste as well, we don't use essential oils because we know that babies put everything into their mouths.

Peter Lap: Yes. They like to touch absolutely everything. 

Helen Thompson: Yes, that's their way of communicating. And you asked me about how you can get in touch with me, if you go to mybabymassage.net/healthy your podcast Healthy Post-Natal on that page you will see all the different ways that people can contact me. I also have an Instagram account called babymassageHelen. I have Facebook as well but I tends to use more of Instagram. Because I find it a lot easier there. I haven't used the Facebook one for a while, mainly I use Instagram. 

Peter Lap: Okay obviously I will link to absolutely everything in the podcast description as well. on that happy note I will just press stop record here, press stop record is exactly what I did. You can find out more about baby massage and her free video introduction at mybabymassage.net/healthyostnatal, I will link to this of course. Again thanks very much for coming on. I could basically talk to her all day. She is a lovely person, who knows a lot about baby massage. We agree on many of the benefits of a massage. And I strongly recommend that you do something like this, with your little one, find the time, make the time, it'll work wonders for yourself and for the baby. In the news this week. It kind of got snuck in under the radar a little bit that abortion was deleted from the UK government organized international human rights statement. You know some multinational statements committing to as the humanist UK website reposit, the humanists, UK, reported committed to the fundamental rights of women and girls, they've been amended to remove references to sexual and reproductive health and rights and bodily autonomy. This really is, If you think that what's happened in America can only happen in America and certain other backward countries. You've got another thing coming, we've got three or four MPs in Parliament that are vehemently anti abortion. Jacob, Morgan, all those guys. And, you want to keep an eye on these people. So I would strongly recommend this send your MP a little email, you can find the email addresses very easily. And you send them an email saying, add this back in, because only if people complain about this, then will anything actually get done by it. It's interesting because obviously I stay in Edinburgh and in Edinburgh the Council recently changed the rules, so that the strip clubs are banned, the local Scottish Government basically said the local councils could decide on this knowing full well that a lot of them would start banning them, our government, the SNP in Scotland is also opposed to all that sort of stuff. With regards to the strip clubs and all that and I don't have a particularly strong opinion on it, with regards to strip clubs, and then sex work and all that, but I do think, women's rights are women's rights, and it's quite funny how they're being eroded absolutely everywhere, and that no one seems to do anything about it. And the main thing is it being eroded by women. In Scotland, we have a female leader and we had all the main leaders spoke about this before, all the leaders of the main parties in Scotland, the conservatives, Labour and the SNP were female at one stage and they all did nothing for women in Scotland. Absolutely nothing, especially for postpartum women. It is, unless you of course, are a big fan of the baby box. And the SNP brought that in, other than that these three parties did absolutely nothing because fundamentally they didn't give a crap. And that is fair quite common with Post-Natal care and you see it, now they are even more and more towards the Puritan approach. And that means stripping off rates and before you know it, abortion is gone. And before you know it, other things are done. In America, all of a sudden the Republicans are voting against contraceptive pills and all that. It's going to happen, these things creep in they creep in slowly. So email your MSP or your MP or whoever your local representative and say this is not acceptable. This is not what I'm standing for, you will lose my vote if you do this stuff. Anyways, on that happy note. Have a tremendous week. Peter@healthypostnatalbody.com if you have any questions comments, want to call me, it's all okay, just email in. More interviews coming up over the next couple of weeks. I've got some phenomenal guests lined up. Just take care of yourself. Here's a new bit of music. Bye now.