Gale Touger, BSN is a nurse practitioner, lactation consultants (IBCLC) and trainer for HUG Your Baby. She shares with us today about her decision to enhance her training to become a Infant Massage Certified Educator of Infant Massage. Let's hear how this training adds to and complements her HUG Your Baby education and experiences.
A good healthcare professional
is always on the lookout for new strategies to best meet the needs of the
families with we serve. When the good
folks with the New Parent Support Program at Laurel Bay, a local military base,
invited me almost a year ago to join a training for Teaching Infant Massage I
was both grateful and excited.
As I moved through the
elements of the training it became increasingly apparent that the family
friendly language, strategies and skills of The HUG are a natural fit with the
approach of Teaching Infant Massage. One of the International Association of Infant Massage goals of instruction
for parent and baby is to encourage
bonding and attachment through communication with the baby. [1] While teaching infant massage we are
instructed to observe and support communication between parent and infant. My training and experience with the HUG added
another important layer to that communication: the tools to describe and help
the parent see what I was seeing in the body and behavior SOSs (signs of over
stimulation), and to explore with the parent what their baby’s body language
might be communicating.
When teaching Understanding Your Newborn I encourage
parents to practice their ‘eyeball exercises’ at every opportunity. The time
when parents practice massaging their infant affords them a specific
opportunity to hone their observation skills for recognizing when their baby is
becoming over-stimulated, and to practice ‘decreasing stimulation’ and
‘increasing support.’[2] I have discovered that applying these HUG
techniques has helped parents watch their baby more discerningly, see when to
modify or pause the massage and has enhanced the experience for parent and
baby.
As part of our certification
process we given a number of assignments, one of which was to choose address
when a baby starts to cry strongly during class. I applied the HUG this way:
Once physical needs have been met a baby may cry
because:
1. The baby is
over stimulated,
a. Responding to
the light, the sounds, the activity in the room.
b. The baby’s
routine has been disrupted and massage is ‘one more thing.’
2. There is a
part of the body or a certain stroke that is not comfortable for the baby.
3. The baby is
approaching a Touchpoint, or developmental surge, and her behavior, her
responses are disorganized as she experiences this emerging change.
The instructor can create a supportive atmosphere by:
1. Reiterate that
we understand that babies will cry sometimes during massage class.
2. Reassure
mom/dad it is ok to do whatever they believe their baby needs (continue
massage, adjust massage or take a break from massaging).
3. If baby
settles with holding and comforting but resumes crying when parent attempts to
resume massaging, invite mom to sit in a comfy seat and observe so that they
can be with the class in a way that meets baby’s needs.
4. If the class
seems receptive and agrees, this might be a teachable moment to pause the
massage instruction and take just a few moments to demonstrate what HUG Your
Baby teaches T.O. Do when a baby is over stimulated –
a. T. = talk.
Glance away from and speak quietly to baby
b. O. = observe.
Watch if baby does some things to soothe herself (Spacing out, Switching off,
Shutting down, fencing reflex, sucking her or his hand)
c. Do. = swaddle,
sway, suck pacifier or at the breast
5. After massage
is completed, have an open discussion about crying babies – how parents feel
with a crying baby, what have they discovered is helpful for their baby and for
them as parents.
Now, after 10 months of study,
practice teaching, reading and writing assignments and self-evaluation, I am
pleased to report I am now an International Association of Infant Massage
Certified Educator of Infant Massage.
[2] HUG Your Baby: Helping Parents Understand their Newborn (Part
1). http://hugyourbaby.org/understanding-the-newborn-part-i/