A way to help strengthen the bond between parents and their children, baby massage often begins with the grandmother teaching the mother how to perform the massage on the infant. It then often continues through adolescence and adulthood.

With 9 out of 10 babies suffering trauma during birth, it’s very important to provide a comforting, nurturing environment in which they can feel safe and secure. Baby massage can help create such an environment. Once the feeling of being in utero–something babies have been accustomed to for over half a year within their mothers–is gone, they need a soothing touch to provide the lost comfort of the womb.

Babies born premature can especially benefit from baby massage. They often do not have the chance to touch their mothers after delivery, sometimes for days or even weeks. To help provide a feeling of safety and security, new parents can gently massage the babies once they are able to be safely touched.

Premature babies can also benefit through “kangaroo care,” or skin-to-skin contact with their mothers, by laying on their mothers’ chests and beneath a blanket. Like massage, the touch of a mother’s skin to the baby has many benefits in this way. Some studies show that it decreases mortality rates, helps with oxygenation levels, aids in baby weight gain and has many other positive attributes.

Baby massage has many more benefits than simply providing security and a bonding experience; that said, the two would still be enough to support the practice. Babies who receive massage are often more emotionally secure, making them more well-adjusted as adults.

Physically, massage has many other benefits. Massaging baby’s stomach can aid digestion. Massage helps the baby’s waste system excrete waste in a more efficient manner, and provides stronger circulation in the baby.

Massage can also make baby more physically flexible, more immune to diseases, have less frequent infections and colds, and more calm overall.