How water treatments increase the effectiveness of bodywork.
Water treatments, especially when combined with healing touch, may be the very oldest and most rever[...]
Special Event at Oregon School of Massage – April 20, 2012
Thirty OSM students, graduates and others from the healthcare community were recently treated to an delightful presentation by Terri Nash, an experienced midwife from Kauai, Hawaii. Terri spoke of the value of massage for prenatal, birth and postpartum times. Her presentation was a blend of technical, medical information about child bearing, anecdotes from her own practice as a midwife, and the role she has seen LMTs play. She included guided exercises.
To begin the presentation she asked participants to bring their hearts and minds together on the role of massage therapists during a woman’s childbearing years. She views touch as a communicator and that the therapist can access that energy and communication with every player in the room – mother, father, birthing team. The therapist can be the holder of positive energy or shift the energy from tension to relaxation.
As a midwife, Terri regularly advises patients to receive massage – her ideal is for the dad to receive massage as soon after birth as possible and for the postpartum mom to receive massage 3 days after birth, and at 1, 3, and 6 weeks. Participants reported that Terri has a strong and welcoming presence, a steady and confident voice, and a demeanor that is both relaxed and professional.
Lisa Barck Garofalo, LMT and OSM instructor, says, “I was quite moved by her guided exercises – one was to connect and channel our energy with the universal energy using the image of light and “plugging into” the energy of the earth and reaching up to energy of the heavens. The second exercise was to clear out negative or change energy (like frustration or exhaustion) by moving the body in a simple pattern that draws what you want to let go of into a ball and releases out into space. It was a pleasure to meet and learn from her.”
This event was an unexpected “extra” for those practitioners participating in Leslie Stager’s Maternity Massage program offered at OSM. Thank you, Leslie, for arranging this presentation.
