Improving relationship connections and attachments through the power of safe nurturing touch.
Our Project
Our Project is to re-educate the language of touch. We are born with an innate need for touch, for survival. This need never changes, it’s how we ask for it, or don’t, that has. It is our purpose to get people re-connected, or connected for the first time to inspire healthy attachment and loving connections with self and all relationships. The Connected Family Project was created for infant to adult, and adult to infant. We hope to connect with you.
“Our need for touch never changes, it’s how we ask for it that has.”
— Kelly Bahe-Newgord Founder
Our classes and workshops are designed to create connection through safe touch and communication. In each class you will learn about the nervous system, consent communication, and techniques to help you stay connected through nurturing touch.
Research shows…
We don’t usually think of physical touch as a form of therapy, but studies have shown that being touched can actually help lessen pain, improve immune system functionality, improve pulmonary function, increase growth and development, and lower blood glucose. With more discoveries being made every day, the healing power of human touch is definitely something more than just a “nice thought.” —-Scientific Facts About the Healing Power of Human Touch|Good Relaxation 2012
When we are touched, our touch receptors signal to the brain (the Vagus Nerve) and it’s the vagus nerve that then slows the heart down and decreases blood pressure. Oxytocin is released which helps to lower the cortisol levels in the body. Cortisol is know as our stress hormone. When our nervous system is regulated, our bodies are able to focus more on thriving, not just surviving.
Facilitates weight gain in preterm infants
enhances attentiveness
Alleviates depressive symptoms
Reduces pain
Reduces stress hormones
Improves immune function
—The Touch Research Institute
Resilience needs relationships, not uncompromising independence.
In the context of a loving relationship with a caring adult, children have the opportunity to develop vital coping skills. The presence of a responsive adult can also help to reverse the physiological changes that are activated by stress. Building Resilience in Children -– 20 Practical, Powerful Strategies (Backed by Science) heysigmund.com
A Simple Touch May Save Lives
One of the first studies that showed the healing power of human touch was done during WWII. Dr. Rene Spitz was perplexed when orphaned infants that were being given the basic needs – shelter, food, and a sterile environment – were dying. The infant mortality rates sky rocketed as more infants came to the orphanage and, despite being given excellent care, passed away. After extensive study years later, the American psychologist Harry Harlow concluded that the infants died from lack of touch. Scientific Facts About the Healing Power of Human Touch|Good Relaxation
Kelly Bahe-Newgord Founder-Owner
LMT,doula, CEIM, SE student
The Connected Family Project has been twenty years in the making. I am a reiki master, massage therapist, touch educator, and student of the human body and of Somatic Experiencing. I am also a trained doula, infant massage instructor, specially trained in pregnancy massage, mother and wife. I have always been fascinated by the human body and aware of how it holds our stories and how touch and connection bring ease and support to our lives. After all, who doesn't like to feel good. Through my work I have learned and been witness the importance of attachment, and the true power of touch. I have seen how touch can transform ones life, whether it be reconnecting a mother and infant after a difficult birth, or an adult who experienced trauma as a child, I have seen how safe touch has transformed relationships not only with ones self but all their relationships, for the better. Some of the changes I have seen are, increased bonding, more self love, postural changes, depression subside, anxiety dissipate, self esteem increase, sleep, digestion and over all mental health improve.
It is my goal and the goal of Connected Family Project to bring families and partners together through safe nurturing touch. So that everyone can experience a happy, healthy, and connected relationship.
A lot of my work has been developed and or realized through my own life experiences and the experiences of those I love. When I was pregnant with my second child, my elder, all or two years old, started asking me for more massage. Once my body starting changing and the baby bump was growing, my oldest felt empowered to ask for touch, letting me know he needed more mommy time. He used positive action rather than negative. I thought, how empowering for a child who had no power of what was about to happen in his world, the birth of another child. I saw how we both won in this situation, it gave us time to talk, snuggle, be silly and most of all connect. And that’s how, The growing Child, class began. The work that is created, is my heart work and I love every minute of it.