Abdominal Massage During Pregnancy: Helping Your Baby in the Womb

Abdominal massage during pregnancy is quite healthy, both for you and for the baby yet to be born. Pre-natal massage therapists have been practicing abdominal massage since pre-natal massage has been taught. It has been found that, in addition to the benefits it gives to the mother, there are also benefits to the unborn baby.

As far as benefits to the mother, it helps to relax the mom to be more so that just massage everywhere else. It can help relax the musculature in the abdomen itself, which can become tired from carrying the extra weight.

In addition to the relaxation benefits, there are also cosmetic benefits to abdominal massage. During pregnancy, the formation of stretch marks is normally a fact of life. While this is so, even in spite of interventions, sometimes abdominal massage can help to reduce the formation of stretch marks by making the skin more pliable and by increasing blood flow to the area.

Now, when it comes to the unborn child, abdominal massage can have some helpful effects. First of all, it can help to calm the unborn baby and reduce stress levels in both his and his mother’s bloodstream.

Perhaps the most important benefit to the unborn child is when the baby is in the wrong position. Several techniques of pre-natal massage are specially reserved for the time when the birth is drawing near, and can provide a non-invasive way to get the fetus into the proper position for the birth itself. These techniques can help to turn the baby around, or even sometimes to help the baby to turn from upright to upside down, so that his head is prepared to exit the birth canal. While it is rare that a complete turning upside down can be accomplished through abdominal massage, it has happened.

Most commonly, it is possible for the baby to be rotated into the correct direction if the rotation is simply from back to front. Abdominal massage is a non-invasive way to cause the fetus to be in the proper position for birth. Many midwives are already aware of these techniques, and have been using them for many years to turn the fetus to the proper position.

When abdominal massage does not work, the midwife will have other techniques in her arsenal to use to help the fetus come out in the proper direction. It is normally the desire of the midwife to do everything possible to ensure a natural birth rather than a c-section, so abdominal massage, along with other techniques, can be helpful for this. Of course, having a pre-natal massage therapist present during the birth is also very helpful, as there will be techniques specific to massage therapy that can help to reduce a woman’s pain, and accelerate the birthing process. These techniques are the specialty of every pre-natal massage therapist, and can be very effective and helpful.

If you would like to learn more about pre-natal massage therapy, or to book an appointment, please click here to visit our website.