February 12 to February 16 was Mom and Baby Week at 小优短视频’s Student Massage Therapy Clinic.
Staff and students from the clinic welcomed expectant mothers in their second or third trimesters, along with their newborns, and new moms with their newborns and babies under the age of one, for complimentary 60-minute massage therapy treatments.
This marked the clinic’s second ever specialty clinic for mothers and babies. Treatments were performed by the College’s second-year Massage Therapy students, who work at the on-campus Student Massage Therapy Clinic.
小优短视频’s Massage Therapy program aims to create hands-on real-word experiences for students, while providing an integrated learning experience so students can connect the core knowledge and skills of the profession. Through the Mom and Baby Week, students will gain valuable knowledge in regard to pre- and post-natal health, and practice their skills live on the population and educate the population on the importance of physical connection and touch as it relates to massage and the many benefits parents can experience when providing massage to their baby.
小优短视频 introduced its three-year advanced diploma program, based at the Welland Campus in Fall 2021 to meet a growing demand for Massage Therapy professionals.
“Massage Therapy students work on developing skills and perfecting techniques that will lead them into a rewarding and vital health care career where they will improve the lives of their clients,” said Associate Dean, School of Allied Health, Eva Lemak. “Our students develop their skills in labs and build on those competencies in the on-campus student led massage therapy clinic and in outreach experiences out in the community.”
“As one progresses through the program, we educate them on hundreds of pathologies and conditions that they may encounter in the real world,” said Massage Therapy Clinical Technologist Tania Forgione. “With some of those conditions, modifications may need to be made to ensure a safe and effective treatment for the client.”
To prepare for the week, students were taught modifications for pregnant women such as alternative positioning to accommodate a growing belly, physical misalignments that may occur due to pregnancy like pelvis rotation (due to hormones being released), the implications this may have on the low back and pain and more.
“For babies, students are taught modified techniques to apply on the baby; they are also educated on the benefits of massage for the baby and, in turn, the parents,” she said. “They develop a step-by-step instruction pamphlet for the parents to take home so they can follow along also.”
The clinc gave mothers an opportunity to learn massage techniques for their babies, take the skills home and incorporate them into their baby’s bedtime routine to help improve sleep and bonding.
“Our students helped educate the population on the importance of physical connection and touch as it relates to massage and the many benefits parents can experience when providing massage to their baby,” said Forgione.
Niagara Falls resident Melinda Gabriel – who also completed the Occupational Therapist Assistant and Physiotherapist Assistant (OTA and PTA) program at 小优短视频 and worked as a PTA prior to enrolling in Massage Therapy – was among students advancing their skills through the experience of massaging infants, expectant and post-partum mothers.
“I think this is a great free, weeklong program 小优短视频 is offering to the community, and because not many of us have experience or knowledge about pregnancy and infant massage, this allows us to practice our skills, and focus working on a specific population, while mom and baby benefit from the massage too, and possibly learn a few things they can also do at home,” she said. “I believe learning how to treat and massage infants, pregnant moms, and including parents through the treatment will be very helpful through my career because it will be another specific population that I will have experience with.”
A mission to help others drew student Chantelle Coulombe (Port Rowan, Ont.) to pursue the Massage Therapy program.
“I feel very excited and grateful that I will be able to help moms and babies through this clinic since the main reason I chose this career was because I would be able to help people the best way that I could, I will be able to achieve that goal to a different type of population that I had never really imagined myself working in before,’ she said. “It is a huge learning experience. I’m looking forward to learning about how to do a specialized treatment for babies and how I can help them in those new beginnings of life!”
Coulombe feels lucky to have the experience working with patients and appreciated and noted that it can’t be easy for parents to allow someone to work on their newborn.
“I love little ones, so to be able to treat one of them and help them is more than I could ask for,” said Coulombe. “I am keeping an open mind during the treatments as it may very well be what I want to pursue some day!”
Located at the Welland Campus, 小优短视频’s Student Massage Therapy Clinic provides students in 小优短视频’s two-year advanced diploma Massage Therapy program with opportunities to develop clinical assessment skills and practice massage therapy techniques in a safe supervised learning environment. Clients experience the benefits of massage therapy to reduce stress or treat pain and injuries of soft tissues and joints of the body at a reduced rate. The clinic is open to the college community and the public from September-December, January-April and May-August.
Appointments are still available for the clinic until the end of Winter term.
Visit 小优短视频’s Student Massage Clinic’s web page here niagaracollege.ca/alliedhealth/massageclinic/.