A team of researchers from Warwick Medical School & the Institute of Education at the University of Warwick looked at 9 studies of massage of young children and this covered a total of 598 infants under the age of 6 months. They discovered that various studies showed quite a range of significant results including indications that infants who were massaged slept better, cried less and had lower levels of the stress hormones of cortisol compared to infants who did not have a massage. One study examined, claimed that infant massage could affect the release of the hormone melatonin.
The Imperial College of London, carried out by Fetal and Neonatal Stress Research Group, results – the aim of this study was to find out whether a programme of mothers with postnatal depression and their babies attending baby massage sessions, whether these sessions would be beneficial. A group who attended five massage sessions were compared to a group who attended a support group, at the end of the test period the parents who attended the massage group had shown significantly less depression and much better interaction with their babies than the group that attended the support group.
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Sharon Fergusson, Massage therapist