What oil should I be using?
These are common questions you would ask your Gynaecologist and Paediatricians.
However, you can lay your doubts to rest because nowhere in the world is the concept of massaging the newborn baby with oil as widespread as it is in India.
Benefits of Massage
Sometimes, the importance given to massaging a newborn baby can reach obsessive levels.
Massage does help, however, by stimulating the baby's muscles and nerves, and relaxing the body. By stimulating the nerves and muscles, massage probably helps in hastening the neuromuscular development of the baby.
To some extent, a massage helps in improving muscular fitness. Also, children feel totally relaxed after a massage and enjoy a restful sleep.
Remember, babies can differentiate between the mother's touch and that of a servant or a relative in the house.
All babies however like to be massaged, and after a massage and a bath, are known to sleep well for a few hours, and get up refreshed.
Massage, however, is not a treatment for any diseases of the muscles or nerves. If the child has a genuine neurological or a neuromuscular problem, many parents assume that massage alone will correct all the defects. This is not true! Your child needs a child neurologist and a physiotherapist for this problem.
| Is a Massage during pregnancy safe? Find out. |
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