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Benefits to Infants

• Relief of discomfort

1. Teething, Congestion: Chest congestion, Sinus Congestion, Colic, Emotional Stress

• Increases circulation of blood, lymph, oxygen and nutrient flow to the cells
• Helps tone muscles and aids growth
• Strengthens the immune system
• Can help with sleep patterns
• Teaches infants that touch is a form of expression; Increases infant's body awareness; Improves sensory awareness
• Teaches children from birth that they are in charge of their own body and that it is okay for them to say no to people touching them
• Helps encourage midline orientation
• Enhances the bonding process
• Speeds myelination of the brain and nervous system

The myelin sheath in peripheral nerves consists of Schwann cells wrapped in many layers around the axon fibers. The Schwann cells are portrayed as arranged along the axon like sausages on a string. (A more apt analogy would be like jelly rolls!) Gaps between the Schwann cells are called nodes of Ranvier. These nodes permit an impulse to travel faster because it doesn't need to depolarize each area of a membrane, just the nodes. This type of conduction is called saltatory conduction and means that impulses will travel faster in myelinated fibers than in unmyelinated ones.

The myelin sheath does several things:

1. It provides insulation to help prevent short circuiting between fibers. Diseases that destroy the myelin sheath lead to inability to control muscles, perceive stimuli etc. One such disease is multiple sclerosis.
2. The myelin sheath provides for faster conduction.
3. The myelin sheath provides for the possibility of repair of peripheral nerve fibers.

• Enhancement of neurological development

At birth, babies' neurological development is continuing. Each new experience increases that development. When a baby is born, the brain weighs about two pounds. By the time a child is two years old, the brain might weigh about four pounds. This increase in weight comes from the millions of new synapses created every time the baby attunes to a new voice, a new sight, a new taste, a new smell, a new word or any new sensation.

• Stimulates the vagus nerve

Touch suppresses stress hormones by rousing the body's pressure receptors and thus stimulating the brain's vagus nerve, which is considered one of the most important nerves in the body. Activity in the vagus nerve slows heart rate, lowers blood pressure, and leads to improved health overall. Simply rubbing lotion onto your skin may prompt vagus nerve activity, but massage provides one of the most powerful forms of stimulation and can even promote total-body rejuvenation.

Vagus' means ‘wanderer' and these nerves wander. The right and left vagus nerves innervate through their branches a widespread range of body parts, from the head down to the abdominal organs.

Website References:

http://jnnp.bmj.com/cgi/pdf_extract/40/10/1031-b
http://www.healthline.com/galecontent/infant-massage#benefits
http://www.liddlekidz.com/growth-and-development.html
http://www.ehow.com/about_5317986_early-childhood-neurological-development.html
http://www.answers.com/topic/vagus-nerve
http://www.umm.edu/neurosciences/vagus_nerve.htm
http://cogweb.ucla.edu/CogSci/Myelinate.html
http://www.pmti.org/index.php?id=53
http://www6.miami.edu/touch-research/TRIResearch/infantmassage.htm