After childbirth, many mothers feel very emotional. They may feel sad, afraid, inadequate, or angry. This is called postpartum blues or the baby blues and usually goes away within a week. Postpartum depression lasts longer and is more severe.

About 10 to 20% of women, especially very young mothers, have all or some of the following symptoms: inability to sleep or sleeping too much, sadness, thoughts about something bad happening to the baby or even inflicting harm on the baby, feeling tired, unwilling or unable to care for the baby, feeling worthless or hopeless, and then feeling guilty.

It is not unusual for a new mother to feel tired, anxious and maybe critical of herself. These feelings normally don’t affect her functioning as a new mother, and disappear relatively quickly. It is unusual for a mother to have anxiety attacks, panic attacks, fear of being alone with the infant, and/or complete disinterest. Some mothers suffering from postpartum depression even hallucinate hearing voices telling them to kill their baby.

We all know that music can help us feel better. Consider the possible consequences of combining massage and relaxing massage music for the mother, with the same thing for the baby. Mom gets a relaxing massage and then is shown how to do the same for her baby.

A young mother can feel overwhelmed by diapers, erratic sleep, and a cranky baby. Releasing her own stress by receiving a massage, then giving one to her baby, can give them both time to relax and bond. A baby massage can not only simply please and relax the baby, but also promote good circulation, digestion and growth as well as ease colic, teething and sleeplessness.

The study “Massage and mother baby interaction with depressed mothers”, carried out by Fetal and Neonatal Stress Research Group, considered whether mothers suffering from postnatal depression would benefit from attending baby massage classes.

One group went to five massage classes and another similar (control) group went to a support group. At the end of the test period the massage group had significantly less depression and better interaction with their babies than the control group.

Soothing massage music helps us to relax. Research suggests that music stimulates the body’s natural “feel good” chemicals (opiates and endorphins). This stimulation results in improved blood flow, blood pressure, pulse rate, breathing, and posture changes, many of the same results that we see from massage. So both mother and baby can benefit greatly from massage accompanied by massage music.