Infant Massage and Quality of Early Mother-Infant Interactions: Are There Associations with Maternal Psychological Wellbeing, Marital Quality, and Social Support?

Infant massage programs have proved to be effective in enhancing post-natal development of highly risk infants, such as preterm newborns and drug or HIV exposed children. Less studies have focused on the role of infant massage in supporting the co-construction of early adult-child relationships. In line with this lack of literature, the present paper reports on a pilot study aimed at investigating longitudinally the quality of mother-child interactions, with specific reference to emotional availability (EA), in a group of mother-child pairs involved in infant massage classes.