Thai Pre-natal and Post-partum Care for Massage Therapists in NYC

traditional Thai painting show village life in the olden times. This painting depicts a woman in traditional birth delivery position, sitting on the ground, supported by a rope in her hands hanging from a rafter. She is attended by seemingly everyone

This two day class is designed to teach massage therapists traditional Thai practices during pregnancy and postpartum time, making sure that students understand the common and variable course of the pregnancy and postpartum experience and how to best safely care for pregnant and postpartum clients. We will learn how to adapt Thai hot herbal compresses for safety during pregnancy and why standard Thai massage routines are not designed for the birthing time of life as we replace them with techniques specific to pre and post natal bodies.

What we will study in this class:
• Anatomy and physiology of pregnancy from both modern and traditional views
• Thai herbal pre-natal massage
• Thai prenatal and postpartum cultural practices and view
• Thai postpartum salt compress massage
• Thai postpartum belly binding
• Thai postpartum steams
• Thai postpartum dietary and lifestyle practices
• Thai cultural understandings and practices during perinatal and postpartum times
• so much more

Dates: June 28th - 29th, 2025
Time: 10 am to 5 pm
CEUS: 12 (NCBTMB approval is pending, we will update when review is complete)
Cost: Early bird price until August 6th $544.50 ~ After August 6th $600
Pre-requisites: None - prenatal Thai massage is not dependent upon having taken other Thai massage classes although it is enriched by previous Thai medicine studies. This class is open to anyone wishing to offer compassionate traditional care for pregnant and postpartum clients, friends, family, partners or self.

Link to Register via CATA coming soon
Please check back shortly

Instructor: I am Naj; your primary instructor for this program. I am the director, founder, instructor, and dish washer of The Naga Center, which I started in 2005. Basically, I am the Naga Center (and much of this website is written first person, in my voice). I have been a massage therapist since I was 21 years old (born in '69, so you can do the maths), and have been traveling to Thailand regularly since 1998 to study traditional Thai Herbal medicine and bodywork and lived there for two years while writing my books on Thai medical theory and herbalism. In the summer of 2017 I spent a month in Thailand, during which time I traveled into the jungles of the far north to learn from kind hearted midwives, in a continuing project of prenatal and postpartum care research that I began nearly 20 years ago.