After becoming certified, Nancy taught classes in a local hospital for two years. At another hospital, she taught individual in-home infant massage and sibling childbirth classes for 14 years.

 Early on, Nancy dealt with the issue of how to bring infant massage to parents who couldn't afford hospital fees for infant massage classes, as well as reaching parents with babies in social services.

 “At that time in the late 1980s, caseworkers and social workers weren't buying the need for lots of good touch let alone massage,” she says. So, Nancy knocked on a lot of doors and kept dreaming up ways to take massage parents with less resources.

 While teaching infant massage for the hospital, Nancy became an active parenting certified instructor and began teaching classes for an organization committed to families. Matching up her vision of spreading the infant massage message with the commitment of this organization, things began to fall into place. Nancy and her co-workers presented a program and to board members to try to get funding for infant massage work in the community. Not one to wait around, Nancy located a funder who underwrote the cost for the first 18 months.

 “That was early 1999, and the massage classes for babies and the growing child have continued,” notes Nancy proudly.

These infant and young child classes have reached more than 2,000 parents in the Denver area since 1999.  They have been also been taught through programs such as Early Head Start, Catholic Charities, Even Start and local social services programs.

Nancy has worked in the mental health field on an early intervention team for the last three years, sharing nurturing touch with parents. She is now preparing to become an infant massage trainer. Both her children seek out massage from a massage therapist and still occasionally request a head and foot massage from their mother!

You can reach Nancy Haas, who lives in Lakewood, CO, at 303-969-3059 or hassknbg@wmconnect.com.