Stomach massage is a great tool for babies, not only for relaxation and bonding, but also because it can really help with the many digestive problems that infants face. Early on, your baby may be dealing with gas pain and colic. With the introduction of solid foods, babies can become constipated as their gut adjusts to the new array of materials which it is expected to digest. Stomach massage can help with all of these things, and so you should practice it regularly on your baby, even if he is very young.
Stomach massage, although brief, is a bit more complicated than other massage. You must wait until at least 45 minutes after your baby's last feeding before massaging his stomach. If he has just eaten, you may give him a stomachache by massaging his tummy during digestion. Therefore, it is sometimes tricky to find a time to do stomach massage because an extra factor is involved: a calm, content baby, and 45 minutes after a feeding. Whenever you see such an opportunity, be sure to take it!
The other very important factor regarding stomach massage is that you must always massage in the direction of "poop flow." The goal of stomach massage is to help your baby clear his bowels of gas and poop more often, so as to reduce pain from common infant GI problems. If you massage against the "poop flow," you may hurt your baby and you will certainly be counterproductive to what you are trying to achieve. The way to massage the stomach is always DOWN and CLOCKWISE. Never massage your baby's stomach up or counterclockwise.
This simple diagram of the abdomen may help you to visualize the lower GI tract, which you are massaging, and which I will describe in the video below. Poop flows from the ascending colon across the transverse colon, and down the descending colon to the rectum for excretion. This is a guideline for how you should be massaging your baby's tummy.
Hopefully with some effective tummy massage, your baby will experience less gas and GI pains. I had a bit of trouble shooting this segment - James recently learned to sit up and roll onto his belly. He did not like staying on his back for this video. Despite the interruptions and breaks, the video includes a complete belly massage.
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