After our meeting with the pediatric physiatrist, her only recommendation to us, other than to enjoy our baby's company, was to integrate massages into our routine.
After looking around a little bit on the internet, I found this nice short and sweet video how to that I plan on trying out today. I think I'm going to stay away from the stroking around the mouth and nose area for the moment however, I suspect that all those nasogastric and orogastric tubes she had might make that area still uncomfortable to be massaged... just a thought. The other part that I think I will skip for now is the massaging of the back - sweet V. still does quite a bit of arching and her back muscles are quite overdeveloped, I do not want to over stimulate that area. Perhaps I'll try it when she is extra calm.
More searching found that there is some evidence that massage might be particularly beneficial to premature babies! I wish someone had told me about that when we were in the hospital. According to a Cochrane Review (Cochrane reviews basically look at the entire body of medical literature, every good study published on a subject and comes to an overall conclusion on how effective a treatment or a diagnositic tool is), it seems that there is some evidence to suggest that when comparing massage to light touch for premature babies, that massage may lead to a 5 more grams per day in weight gain, earlier hospital discharge and some improved neurodevelopmental testing. Amazing!! The best part really, is that although no study is perfect and perhaps the effects are somewhat overstated, they did not find any disadvantage to the massages. Read more about the details of the studies here.
My husband and I are now considering consulting an infant massage specialist.
Do you have any experience with infant massage? Do you think internet videos are sufficient or would a consultation with a specialist be preferable?
Inquiring minds want to know!
Xo
C
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