How Does Pregnancy Massage Help?

Pregnancy is definitely a very strenuous process. Women get tired easily, they experience physical and emotional pains frequently due to hormonal changes in their body. In this regard, she absolutely needs to be pampered to keep up with the demands of pregnancy.

Pregnancy massage is one effective way to relieve all those pain and stress brought by being pregnant. It can be done during pregnancy, which is termed as prenatal massage; it can also be done after giving birth, and it is referred as postnatal pregnancy.

Before we proceed, what is pregnancy massage?

Pregnancy massage is a term used for all hands-on massage done to ease the pain of a pregnant woman and relieve her from all the stress she is experiencing in her pregnancy. It normally lasts for an hour.

Most often, practitioners use a massage table to accommodate the pregnant woman. In some cases, a special kind of pillow, or bolster is used to position a woman on her side. The most comfortable position for a pregnant woman is lying on her side.

There are a lot of benefits that pregnancy massage can give, and here are some of them:

o It helps lower anxiety.
o It decreases leg and back pain.
o It helps improve sleep.
o It decreases the level of the stress.
o It increases the levels of 'feel-good' hormone serotonin and dopamine.
o It decreases the level of cortisol, which is an indicator of stress.
o It relieves pain.
o It boosts the immune system.
o Finally, it improves the overall mood.

Let us find out the safe techniques on how to do pregnancy massage. There are at least 80 types of massage and 1,300 massage therapy programs in the United States. Here are some of these:

o One is deep-tissue massage. It consists of firm strokes that press deeply into the muscles.
o Second is the Swedish massage. It consists of long strokes applied into the muscles to achieve joint mobility.
o Shiatsu is another type of pregnancy massage. It consists of pressure tapping on acupressure points, which aids for the stimulation of the body's natural energy.

These techniques are adapted to suit the various stages of pregnancy. During pregnancy, blood clots are common because the blood volume increases to as high as 50%. That is why pregnancy massage is very important to be light with gentle stroke, so as not to dislodge blood clots.