Title: Baby Massage for Dummies
Author: Joanne Bagshaw and Ilene Fox
Source: Ottawa Public Library
ISBN: 9780764578410
Available online
Notes: This book describes advantages of baby massage for a child’s physical and emotional development, bonding with the caregiver, and as an aid in treating various ailments. Besides discussing the benefits and the overall principles of massage, the book covers specific techniques to masssage babies with normal development, premature babies, babies with fetal alcohol syndrome and other developmental problems, as well as those exposed to HIV.
The most useful information besides the techniques themselves, are the suggestions of massage timing (as related to bathing, sleeping, changing, and other routines) and the sequences of techniques most appropriate to different situations, developmental stages, comfortable level of stimulation, etc.
The book would be more useful if they provided the techniques in an easy-reference format such as cut-away cards, for instance, as flipping through the book while trying to keep a squirming baby in place and massage them, is not the most practical thing to attempt.