Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Prenatal Massage, YES PLEASE!!!

The Calgary Health Region offers prenatal massage classes for couples and Darren suggested we take one. Best $40 I've spent in awhile!

The teacher was fantastic, both funny and informative. She knew her stuff!She's had 20 years experience as a massage therapist and 15 years experience as a doula. I loved that she got right down to business as soon as the class began. She had the husbands sit backwards on their chairs and the wives begin about a half hour massage of our husbands backs, necks and heads. She explained technique and massage therapy ground rules as we went.

Some of the things we learned:

- once you begin a massage, continue maintaining contact at all times

- if you are only using one hand to massage, rest the other hand on the persons body, more touch is more relaxing

- never massage bone on bone

- the muscle junctures need lots of work

- always massage in a circular motion

- never dig in hard right away when you find a tender spot, massage it slowly for a few minutes then move on and come back later to massage it a bit more deeply

We hope we'll remember these tips for when I go into labour. The teacher recommended practicing one to two times every week in order to improve and get more comfortable with the techniques. Hubs, I could get used to this!

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