Your Fourth Trimester: Benefits of Massages for New Parents

You’ve tracked your baby’s growth and development since the moment you found out you were pregnant — day by day and week by week. You celebrated the trimester milestones, building up to the big day of delivery when you met your child for the first time. 

Now that your baby is here, you're entering the “fourth trimester,” a time of postpartum transition that can confuse your body and mind. 

Caring for yourself during this stage enables you to care for your baby better, and we can help. At Earthy Ruby in Cupertino, California, we have a special place in our hearts for new parents and offer several services that help you ease into your new role. 

Postpartum massage

Massages are a popular way to pamper yourself and unwind, but they’re also legitimate medical treatments. After giving birth, your body is misshapen, misaligned, and sore. Your muscles may tense up due to the stresses of learning to be a mom. It’s tough to be the attentive, present parent you want to be when your body aches — and this is where massage can help.

More than just a pampering session, our postpartum massage therapy delivers:

Hormonal balance

When you became pregnant, new hormones surged throughout your body to support and develop a new life. When you gave birth, those hormones (particularly estrogen and progesterone) plummeted. However, oxytocin and prolactin levels spiked to help you breastfeed. And this rollercoaster of hormones triggers a flood of cortisol, the stress hormone. 

Massage therapy lowers your cortisone levels and helps you calm your body and mind. It also reduces dopamine and serotonin, two hormones/neurotransmitters associated with depression, and norepinephrine, a hormone/neurotransmitter that constricts your blood vessels and can affect your heart function and sleep cycle.

Pain relief

Carrying another human for nine months can throw your body out of whack. And once the baby arrives, you use a different set of muscles to lift and carry your child. Your back, legs, arms, shoulders, and hips hurt, and you’re not alone. 

Postpartum body pain is common, and massage therapy is a great way to relieve it. Our specialists know how to target tight muscles and relieve pain and tension. Each gentle stroke increases your circulation and melts away the aches.

Improved sleep

Every new parent craves sleep, but some can’t achieve it even when their baby snoozes. Sleep deprivation makes it almost impossible for your body to recover after delivery. Massage therapy promotes deep relaxation, allowing your brain to turn off and enter deep, restorative sleep. Regular massages can increase the quality, if not the quantity, of your sleep, improving healing and mental health.

Fluid flush

After delivery, your baby has left your body, but all the extra fluid that supported their time inside remains. Most women experience a 50% increase in fluid volume during pregnancy, and it takes a while for it to find its way back out again. 

Massage therapy helps redistribute the excess fluid by increasing your circulation and shifting the water to other areas. Our lymphatic drainage techniques enable your body to flush away the unneeded water so you feel less swollen and bloated. 

Better breastfeeding

If you choose to breastfeed, you’ll want to do all you can to maximize your milk production and enable your baby to nurse, and massage therapy can do both. Relaxation is one of the keys to successful milk letdown, and a massage not only relaxes you, but also loosens and opens up your chest and shoulders to facilitate lactation.

Massage therapy, particularly breast tissue massage, also benefits lactating moms by:

• Increasing the prolactin hormone
• Decreasing the sodium levels in your milk
• Increasing the quality of breast milk
• Increasing the quantity of breast milk
• Preventing clogged milk ducts

Some women face significant breastfeeding challenges, but massage therapy can alleviate most of them.

More postpartum care

Beyond massage therapy, our Earthy Ruby team supports your fourth trimester with several other services and treatments. 

For example, postpartum acupuncture works harmoniously with massage therapy to relieve stress and pain, and our experienced life coaches help you navigate your new normal as a parent and overcome postpartum depression. 

Dads can benefit from massage therapy, too. A relaxed, stress-free father helps mother and baby thrive. 

Contact Earthy Ruby online or by phone to schedule your fourth-trimester massage or other postpartum treatment and help the whole family ease into this new phase in good physical and mental health.