Infant Massage history and background

Infant massage is an ancient art that has been practiced in India, the Indonesian islands of Bali, Fiji and New Guinea and parts of Africa and South America. The art has been passed down from mother to daughter, regarded as a sacred art, as a given is their  matter of course in their daily routine. Mothers, the world over, know that their children need to be held, carried, cradled and touched.

The method of infant massage we teach has been developed by Vimala McClure from the United States, founder of the International Association of Infant Massage (IAIM).

Vimala McClure went to India in 1973 to study yoga and ended up working in an orphanage. At the orphanage, she saw how well the children felt even though they were living under very different circumstances than in the west. All the children received daily massage, a close contact that Vimala was also given the opportunity to experience when she fell ill to malaria. The women took care of her and massaged her allowing Vimala to feel the enormous pleasure of massage

After returning home she became pregnant, and quote:

”In 1976 I was expecting my first child. I spend most of my pregnancy reading and writing, and I decided that I wanted to write and to be involved in some aspect of parenting or childbirth education, ...”