30Nov

Massage for Newborns 101 (graduate programs)

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By Irvin Mcclain

  Newborns simply love to be touched and cuddled. The skin to skin touch helps you and your baby bond, comforts your baby when she is upset or uneasy with gas or colic problems. Hence, touch is a critical part of growth and development.

The massage strokes used on adults are completely different from the strokes to be used on newborns. You can adapt the adult strokes to massage your child. Just make sure that your strokes are lighter on them. The younger they are, more delicate and smaller will be the strokes be.

It is ideal that you take your child either on your lap or lay him on any kind of elevated soft surface such as few thick towels put together. Be very gentle while massaging. If your child cries or does not enjoy it, stop massaging till it feels comfortable about the whole thing.

Massage steps for the front of the body

- Lay the child on the back. Start by stroking gently the face, move to the middle of the forehead and temples

- Stroke the cheeks from nose to ears and back moving down to the chin. Gently stroke the area around the eyes.

- Stroke the front of the body along the arms. Make clockwise circles around the navel with both hands. Do gentle wringing action across the abdomen and up the body.

- Take one arm at a time, start stroking from shoulder to hand to fingers. Massage the hand, squeeze and rotate each of the fingers in turn. Do the same for other arm.

- Take one leg at time. Do a gentle wring or squeeze up the leg and stroke down the leg. Do the same for other arm.

Massage steps for the back of the body

- Lay the child stomach down. Stoke up and over the back and along the arms.

- Do a gentle kneading on the child’s shoulder

- Do a gentle wringing stroke all over the body. Massage the rear side with gentle kneading or pinching strokes.

- Slide smoothly down the spine alternating with both the hands. Start from the base of the neck and move to working down to the base of spine.

- Gently stroke the legs, bending the knee up and working all the way to the foot.

- Hold the anklebone between your fingertips and move both the hands in circular motion.

- Squeeze the heal with one hand and use the thumb of your other hand to massage the sole of the foot.

- Massage the toes by gentle squeezing, rotating and pulling it in turns. Hold the foot firmly between your hands for few seconds. Repeat the same for massaging the backside of other leg.

Lastly, turn the baby over and give it a final massage in two strokes. Start from one foot up the leg, across the lower abdomen and move down the other leg. Do light strokes from the top of head right down to the feet.

To massage the baby having gas or digestive problems, use the “I Love You” technique.

- Lay the baby on the back and undress it completely or just leave the diaper on.

- Use two or three fingers of your right hand to trace the alphabet “I” on the right side of the abdomen with gentle, yet firm movements.

- Next do a gentle stroke from left to right across the baby’s abdomen and then do a small downward stroke along the right side of his stomach forming upside down “L” alphabet.

- Last, stroke up from the left side of your baby’s hipbone moving towards the left side of the abdomen, across the baby’s body from left to right horizontally along the stomach and finally finish by stroking down the right side in the same manner, forming the “U” alphabet in upside down direction.

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Baby Shower Theme Ideas

By Dwain Griffith

  An even more exciting time lies ahead with the planning of a unique baby shower for the new arrival. Preparing for a baby shower can be a fun and exciting experience for all involved. You can plan for the event to be grand or simple but the most important issue is to make the occasion a very memorable one. This can be done by choosing the right theme and by doing this you can rest assured that the guests will leave the baby shower party mentally maimed with fond memories.

You have an abundance of options to select from. Ideas/themes can be humorous or on a serious level the preference is yours for the baby shower.

Baby Showers are always a success and are sure to impress with careful planning, therefore it is important to finalize your decision on the theme so that you can prepare to claim the effect you want portrayed at the baby shower party

Spice up the baby party theme with colour, we all know blue for boys pink for girls but once again this is you and your babys day so you choose. For the venue decorate the room with coloured balloons, ribbons, big bows little bows or hang down streamers whatever. If the sex of the baby is unknown at the time of the gathering keep to neutral colours such as lemon white peach.

A baby bottle theme is very poplar at baby showers where the baby bottle stands proud as a centrepiece. Fun can be added to your party by using the bottles as cups for the guests.

Cuddly toys like teddies are cute and make perfect decorative items. Try placing the teddy among other cuties. If the baby shower party is to be cost effective then why not ask friends and family for cuddly toys to use instead of buying. Make sure that the borrowed pieces are in a presentable condition for the day

Diaper or nappy themes go down well at baby showers. Let your guests know in advance of your particular theme, this can be done by adding this info onto the invitations giving the guest some hindsight behind what gift to give, it is a good chance it will be diapers.(You can never have to many)

The forever favourite is a nursery rhyme theme.

Party themes based on nursery rhyme characters like humpty dumpty. Little Bo peep or Bambi are just a few to mention

Double trouble twins, not to worry things do not need to be doubled or repeated twice. A superb theme for this occasion is Noah and the ark for pregnant women expecting twins; don’t forget to let your guest know that they are coming to this baby shower to celebrate two bundles of joy. Fingers crossed two prezzies into the bargain

Baby Showers is a celebration which fills the air with joy so therefore we need a happy atmosphere. If your budget is tighter than you thought then ask the guests to come in brightly coloured costumes this will surely spruce and spice up the occasion. Who needs ribbons and balloons if the company is good?

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Do women handle stress better than men?

By Dr. Jennifer Lagrotte, DMFT,

  Do women handle stress better than men? This is a question that has been asked for a very long time. Some believe that women do handle stress better, because they are more emotional. In fact, it was believed that women did not suffer from as much stress as men because they let it out, or released their stress by talking to their friends or crying. It is true that women tend to be more expressive, but it is not necessarily true that they are more emotional than men. Men are emotional as well, they just tend to keep it in more and be less expressive than their counterpart.

When it comes to stress, there have been numerous tests done in order to find a way to target its causes and then address these problems in order to help people reduce the stress in their lives. As stress has been linked to heart problems, and women were found to have a lower rate of heart disease than men, it was thought that it could possibly be due to their not being as stressed. However, in recent times, the number of women suffering from heart disease is increasing and, in some areas, is almost level with the number or percentage of men who suffer from it. This has been attributed, in part, with the increase of women in the workplace, as well as with more women in the higher up and more stressful jobs on the corporate ladder. When looking at this kind of data, one might start thinking that women might not actually handle stress any better than men can. After all, when faced with some of the same hurdles and goals that men have been working toward for centuries, women seem to suffer about the same repercussions as men do when they get to the same game.

After looking at all the data, and how stress has affected both men and women over the last 20 to 30 years, one can really start to wonder if their first observations or assumptions about how each gender handles stress. Maybe women do not actually handle it any better than men, or maybe, life as a whole is becoming more stressed now than it ever was. One has to think about this too; with all this new technology that was meant to make our lives easier, the weekly hours of work has not decreased, they have increased. Though everything is being put onto the computer, people can type as much or more than 80 words a minute, and the internet is as fast as ever, our lives still seem to be more packed, hyper and busier than ever. Now look at it from a family woman’s point of view; older values and traditions are still seen clearly in this generation. So, not only is a woman expected to be useful and have a successful career, she has to look after her kids, her husband and the house. It is no wonder that women are starting to see similar numbers in the heart disease column as men. This is why women should be taking a moment, especially if they are feeling extra stressed, to get in touch with an online counselor or online therapist. A little casual online therapy or online counseling couldn’t hurt, even if one doesn’t really feel they need it. It could actually, quite possibly, save one’s life.

Dr. Jennifer Lagrotte, DMFT is the owner of CompleteCounselingSolutions.com which offers a variety of
href=”http://www.completecounselingsolutions.com/sessions.php”>online counseling services. If you would like to know more about Jennifer or any of our online therapists, visit our website.

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Categories: education

Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 6:55 pm and is filed under education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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