IAIM Trainers

Sylvie has been an international trainer and Certified Infant Massage Instructor with the IAIM for over 30 years. She has pioneered infant massage in Canada, as well as in various countries around the world, including South Africa, Hungary and Japan, Indonesia and Malaysia. Sylvie was the President of the IAIM for 12 years and has been a member of the IAIM International Educational Committee for 18 years. Sylvie can affirm that she has witnessed the benefits of the IAIM program with families all around the world.

Sylvie has a diploma in nutrition from Maisonneuve College (1976) and a BSc degree in Education from Montréal University (1980). Sylvie is also a qualified Steiner-teacher trained with l’Institut Rudolf Steiner au Québec (1998). She has taught primary school, as well as biology and nutrition lessons to teenagers, and is an international lecturer on parenting and education. Sylvie is a mother of three grown children. 

Sylvie is also the co-founder of the Massage in Schools Program (2000), along with her Swedish colleague Mia Elmsäter. Furthermore, Sylvie is the author of The Song of the Child (2004), co-author of Touch in Schools: a Revolutionary Strategy to Replace Bullying by Respect and to Reduce Violence (2010), and has a published chapter (The Myth of Early Stimulation for Babies) in the book Too Much Too Soon (2011).

Sylvie is currently working on her next two books; one will focus on protecting babies' brains, while the other looks into her “one million miles in the air” following her travels and cultural experiences.

Wanda was introduced to Infant Massage as a new parent in 1997 when she attended a class at a local family resource centre.  She fell in love with its effects on her growing family and became a Certified IAIM Instructor in 2011.  She has been passionately sharing the gift of nurturing touch with families all over Nova Scotia ever since.