Melanie Raposo: Hi! Everybody, I am Melanie Raposo and welcome to The Pregnancy Show. We all know how massage can do wonders to our body but did you know that massaging your infant can provide many important health benefits to your baby and is great bonding time. Today, we are in Growing Babies Infant Massage Class in Toronto, where we'll show you some great techniques you can try on your baby at home.

Janice Battiste: One of the main benefits for the parents is getting rid of the gas for those gassy babies. So, there are certain massage strokes that we do on the belly. We put a little bit more pressure there, otherwise, there won't give the relief. The main focus about the belly is that we are going clockwise. So, this is the direction of the colon which helps to get the contents of the colon moving along, plus with a little bit of pressure there, hopefully the gas is going to come out.

Melanie Raposo: Before beginning to massage your baby, it's important to get permission from your infant. Your baby will let you know they want to be massaged by demonstrating certain cues.

Janice Battiste: Babies are like this a lot, so when you grab hold of the rest and you start the massaging, we are looking for permission in a sense, so we are waiting for the baby to go, yes, that feels good, I enjoy that and sort of extend the hand. If they sort of keep tugging back, then they probably don't want that massage done and everyday is going to be different, so one day they won't want it, the next day they well. You want them to enjoy future massage sessions, so if you sort of keep tugging on it, they are not going to enjoy that and then won't want it done the next time.

Get some oil in your hand and every time you get a new bit of oil, I am going to have you rub it by the baby. So, we warm up our hands as well, if your hands are cold. But I am going to get you to rub it by their ear, it creates a little bit of that white noise, which is very soothing for babies.

Okay, so there you go, very nice. Okay. So, I am going to get you to grab the ankle, where you see, put your hand there and back and forth, bringing motions right up to the diaper area. When you get to the diaper area, start up by the ankle again and then go back.

You want your hands to slide smoothly over the skin, so with something like oil, it does slide really smooth over the skin, and what we use are plants or vegetable based oil, cooking oil, sunflower oil, olive oil, easily absorbed into the skin, easily digested when they suck on their hands. But with the traditional baby oil, it's not as easily absorbed and not easily digested when they suck on their hand.

Melanie Raposo: Janice recommends massaging your infant at least every other day and massaging baby right before bed time means a longer lasting sleep for you and your little one.

Janice Battiste: Generally, the massage, they do find it relaxing, they learn how to relax to the touch and then they often fall asleep half way through the massage.

Melanie Raposo: Make sure that your baby is always calm before beginning a massage and be aware that there are certain instances when you should not massage your infant.

Janice Battiste: In the case of illness, for example, so if your baby has a fever, fever is extremely uncomfortable, the massage is going to be uncomfortable, chest congestion, wheezing, so in illness in general, you don't want to do massaging. I am not going to promise that the baby is going to like their very first massage because it's the first time that it's happening, same with diaper change, bathing, stick with it, they will love the massage, they'll learn to relax to it, you relax as the baby relaxes and they will enjoy the massage for months and months.

Melanie Raposo: To learn more about infant massage, and the classes offered at Growing Baby visit ThePregnancyShow.com.