Sunflower Organics and Wellness – Ayurveda and Natural Wellness A Journey to Better Health
Baby massage has been a long tradition practise in India. From the day my grandson was born, he was given an oil massage before his bath daily. As a newborn a cleansing massage is done with a soft wheat dough ball (size of a table tennis ball). For the wheat dough – I have used buckwheat flour.(atta flour that I bought from the Indian grocery store – this flour is mainly used to make chappatis) The flour is mixed with little warm water to make it dough and roll into a small ball. The dough ball is then dipped into Ayurvedic herbal baby oil with a dash of turmeric powder added. Using your fingers to hold the dough, lightly roll the oiled dough and roll over the infant’s body, starting from the neck region downwards to the legs in circular motion. This practise is done for the first 7 days from birth before bath. This enhances circulation, helps in the expulsion of toxins and also aids the digestive system of the infant.
On the 8th day onwards, the baby is still massage using the dough with just dipping the dough into the Ayurvedic herbal baby oil and massage daily. Most time of the massage would be spend in massaging the spine, back, neck, waist, hands and feet because these parts need to gain strength to support the body. I did the dough massage till my grandson was about 6 months as he would have make a lot of complain of not able to stay firm to allow this massage process to be done easily. Massage time varies from 5-10minutes depending on his mood.
When this happends, he was massaged with our hands by rubbing the oil onto our hands to warm it and then massage him gently in the same manner and areas as specified above.
Till to date he is still bath daily in warm water with some boiled turmeric decoction and then have a final rinse on clean warm water. Turmeric has an anti inflammatory property and this prevents him from getting any skin infection or allergy.
After his bath, after drying him well with a bath towel, little Ayurvedic herbal baby oil is dipped onto his belly button and his crown forehead. This is to prevent any wind from entering his body. As the infant fontella is still soft, a gently rub of oil on this are must be done carefully.
