Massage in the Birth Year

by Kara Maia Spencer, LMT, CD, www.MaiaHealingArts.com 

 

Through learning the stories of traditional midwives around the world, it is evident that massage has been a central component of midwifery care for thousands of years. Midwives use their hands to palpate the abdomen, assess the position and health of the fetus, feel the lie of the uterus, and align the energy flow through the abdomen. The prenatal massage may occur at every visit with the midwife, and during the massage conversation occurs between the mother and midwife involving counseling, recommendations, and evaluation. Traditional midwives provide hands-on birthing assistance in the form of physical support: a hand to hold, a body to lean on, gentle massage, hot compresses, and intuitive touch. Traditional postpartum care may include ritual massage of the new mother, and teaching the mother to massage her infant regularly.

Over the course of the last few centuries, western medicine has become the culturally accepted method of birthing. Western medicine has brought vital emergency care to birthing women, yet the cost to birth is the loss of individual compassionate care, optimal maternal and fetal health – and touch. Midwives continue to be the guardians of instinctive birth through these dramatic times of medical childbirth intervention and rising cesarean rates. The midwives model of care trusts in women’s bodies, birth, and nature.

Increasing rates of medical intervention and surgical birth in the Western world is due in part to our culture’s disassociative relationship between body, mind, and spirit. This results in a widespread fear of childbirth among women in our culture, perpetuated by the media and the medical establishment. Body awareness practices, such as massage therapy, are extremely valuable in pregnancy and postpartum, as we seek to improve maternal and infant health care and outcomes.

Pregnancy massage profoundly benefits the expecting mother and the unborn baby. Thomas Verny, M.D., the founder of the Association for Pre- and Perinatal Psychology and Health (APPAH) writes in his book Nurturing the Unborn Child that after the sixth month of gestation the unborn baby can sense massage of the abdomen and responds to that touch. Pregnant women should be encouraged to massage their pregnant bellies daily beginning in early pregnancy; it is soothing practice that increases the mother’s responsiveness to her baby.

The unborn baby has been receiving a massage from the mother’s uterine muscles and the amniotic fluids since early gestation. The nervous system begins to grow at three weeks and research has shown that the embryo will respond to a touch probe at six weeks. The fetus receives continuous touch in the womb. Massage of the mother and her belly assists the visceral massage of the unborn baby which provides neurological stimulation and growth.

Mothers who receive massage during pregnancy gain increased body-awareness of their pregnant physique. Research by Tiffany Fields at the Touch Institute indicates that women who receive prenatal massage have decreased leg and back pain, decreased anxiety, improved mood, improved sleep patterns, fewer complications during labor, and fewer complications with the baby after birth. Stress in pregnancy contributes to immune deficiency, nausea, decreased blood supply to the uterus, miscarriages, complications, fetal distress, and postpartum complications. Massage therapy in pregnancy decreases stress and increases endorphins and oxytocin. Oxytocin is the hormone necessary for birth, bonding, and breastfeeding to be successful. Oxytocin and adrenaline are antagonists, therefore reducing stress levels through massage therapy results in improved birth outcomes.