Shantala massage to relax your baby
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Shantala massage, as the name implies, is a technique from India and brought to the west by a French obstetrician, for its countless benefits for the baby. These advantages include psychomotor development, increased blood flow, improvements in breathing, prevention of colic, constipation and insomnia. In addition to all this, it is an excellent way to calm and relax the child, while strengthening the affective bonds.
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The benefits of Shantala Massage
This practice leaves the baby much calmer, activates blood and lymphatic circulation, which improves the functioning of all organs and also the immune system and promotes sensory motor development, allowing the baby to acquire excellent body awareness. For example, when babies start taking their first steps, they tend to get around obstacles better and avoid falls.
Shantala massage contributes to a better functioning of the gastrointestinal as well as endocrine system, thus reducing the baby’s cramps, gases and stress situations. On the other hand, it stimulates and improves your breathing pattern, being able to decrease the complications very common in these ages, also strengthening the muscular and articular system.
This technique can and should be introduced from the first week until the five or six years old, and the results in babies and little children with limitations and/or disabilities are admirable, although each case is different and there are pathologies that require specialist monitoring.
How to learn to massage your baby
Shantala massage is not difficult to learn, but there is a sequence to be followed that must be respected. To get to know it, read about it, watch videos on YouTube or talk to other parents who have already practiced it.
However, training guided by a professional is important whenever possible so that the technique, details and adaptations to each baby are correctly learned. There is also another issue that was worked on during the training and that is very important: the emotional state of the Mother and Father.
In general, Mother sits with her legs stretched out, her back straight and shoulders relaxed, resting the baby with her head on her feet, and the baby’s feet against her abdomen. The massage starts with the child on their backs, starting at the chest, then moving to the upper limbs and then to the lower ones. Then the baby is placed face down to receive the back and leg massage; and, finally, it is turned again on its back to be massaged in the face.
It’s necessary to understand that an extremely fragile being will be touched and manipulated. You should first create a routine to do Shantala, that is, it should always happen at the same time of the day, especially in the evening, as it helps to a long and restful sleep.
But there are other essential precautions such as looking for a quiet place, where both can remain without being interrupted, with a pleasant temperature and without drafts. The mother’s clothes should be comfortable so that she is comfortable. As for the hands, they will have to be clean, warm, without props and nails well cut to avoid hurting the child.
According to the French obstetrician Frederick Leboye, “it’s necessary to talk to the baby’s skin, which is thirsty and hungry like its stomach”. The doctor also emphasizes the importance of those who are going to give the massage to be 100% present and keep their eyes in connection with the child’s eyes. Thus, when receiving the ‘touch’, the baby feels more secure and loved. The stimuli you will receive produce endorphins and hormones that reinforce feelings of warmth, warmth, friendship: a true act of love.
