Working with an Osteopath
At the beginning of the first Covid-19 lockdown I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. This was my first baby so I was fully equipped with societies ill-informed expectations for my darling daughter to sleep next to me in the crib and spend time in her bouncer etc (the picture we are all sold as first time mums as to how our babies should be). Well, a few days into new motherhood and I had already realized this was quite clearly not the case.
My daughter was a velcro baby. She loved nothing more than to nurse and be held day and night which I soaked up but something in my gut told me there was a lot of discomfort going on. She would scream if you lay her on her back, had a lot of gastro discomfort, much preferred to hold her body and head to one side and was so tense and tight that she held her own head up right from birth. As the months in lockdown passed I became used to her particular ways, her need to be bounced and walked at a particular pace and had become accustomed to taking shifts with my partner to soothe our daughter’s need to be continually held.
We spent four months taking six hour shifts at night. I would be awake with her from 9pm until 3am and he would be awake from 3am until 9am waking me every two hours or more for her to nurse. We spent four months like this and felt very fortunate that he was furloughed so we had each other during the day. It was only as the world began to open up again and we began having conversations with the local neighbours that I thought perhaps there might be something I could do to help.
Due to the COVID restrictions, we walked very similar paths every day and that meant we bumped (socially distanced) into the same dog walkers each time. It was during one of these walks that a kind lady stopped me and said she had seen me over the past months patiently calming my baby and that her daughter had had similar difficulties but that she had taken her to an osteopath and found great relief. I wasn’t familiar with osteopaths and their work and so spent the next few nights night feeds googling it, sending hopeful emails that they might be still practicing despite lockdowns and gleefully imagining all the sleep I was going to get once my daughter started working with an osteopath. An expectation I seem to have prior to any change I make and one I have spent the first two years of motherhood trying to reign in.
What Is Osteopathy & How Can It Potentially Help?
‘Osteopathy for babies and children is a gentle non-invasive technique whereby the practitioner aids the body’s natural self-correcting mechanism to relieve trauma that may have occurred during birth’
The above explanation is achieved through putting gentle pressure on specific parts of the body to enable the inherent healing ability of the body and to relieve any stresses and tension that maybe being held. The osteopath will use their hands on specific parts of the babies body to alleviate any pressure and to check for common distortion of connective tissues. The birthing process can subject newborn babies to enormous amounts of force as they squeeze their way from the womb into the world in which ever way they make their entrance. Contractions during birth can cause compressions on a baby’s body and if they have adopted difficult positions during pregnancy and birth they could experience muscle strain and tension. Nerves in the skull can become irritated and a common nerve that impacts the stomach can become pinched and is sometimes the cause of colic symptoms.
However, it is really important to state that babies do not need osteopathy. Many babies recover naturally from pregnancy and birth. However, working with an osteopath can help this recovery process along, relieve discomfort, irritability and unsettled behaviours and allow babies to adopt a sense of calm and relaxation where they may previously have been tension.
From a personal point of view, if I have been put through a strenuous workout and my body feels tight and tense I like to do things to help calm and soothe it, I find it nurturing. This is how I feel about osteopathy. Birth is a huge workout for mother and baby and if there is something to help soothe this, I would like to offer that to my baby. As with anything like this I am acutely aware of the privilege of being able to afford osteopathy and wish that it was available free of charge for all mothers and children.
My Personal Experience With Osteopathy
Due to COVID-19 and lockdown restrictions, we were only finally able to see an osteopath when our daughter was eight months old. This was actually quite a tricky age to take a baby to an osteopath and in the future if circumstances allowed I would take a baby much sooner. I needed to give a history of pregnancy and birth and a history of myself to the practitioner which was a lengthy and time consuming discussion and being patient and co-operative isn’t of huge interest to an eight month old baby.
Trying to keep my daughter calm and discuss sensitive topics proved somewhat difficult. However, as best we could we discussed the birthing issues, the c-section, the missed tongue tie and tell-tale feeding habits and I really felt heard, listened to and understood and as a result I felt confident that we had a very personalized path ahead planned.
Once the history had been taken it was time for the treatment to start. Again, this was a hard task with an eight month old. I had to bring along my best, most enthusiastic, most passionate play attempts and use all the toys in the office to keep my daughter entertained so that she would allow the osteopath near her and for the treatment to take place. The practitioner needs to be able to place their hands on the babies’ body and head. Gaining access to her body as she played was a lot easier to achieve! However, allowing the osteopath to work with her head has been an ongoing battle of which she now tolerates a few minutes of cranial osteopathy.
An hour and a half after our first osteopathy treatment began, I left the osteopaths treatment room absolutely exhausted from my imaginary play show but with a very relaxed daughter who did a huge poo without struggle, slept for two hours straight and that afternoon learnt the final skill needed to crawl. She had been struggling to co-ordinate the left hand side but the treatment had eased muscular tension she was holding and she crawled about with ease. I couldn’t believe it!
Although she didn’t sleep for long stretches as my sleep deprived brain had longed for, she did sleep a lot more deeply, contently and woke without pain. We began to see the osteopath weekly for the first four weeks. After the initial treatment the changes only seemed to last a few days before she appeared in pain again but as the weeks progressed the comfort she was getting lasted until the next treatment. We followed this pattern and slowly increased the time between visits. After each treatment my daughter is far calmer, less stressed and often masters a new skill. It becomes very obvious when she is due a treatment as her whole system begins to tighten up again. She fusses more, is easily distressed and becomes very cross and tight. Over the visits we have built a wonderful relationship with our osteopath and our little girl really enjoys going and is much more open to being treated. I find it fascinating to see her system visibly relax on the table and even her play noticeably changes throughout the session.
I have been amazed by the results we have seen whilst working with an osteopath. It wasn’t the magic sleep pill my brain had wanted but it was so much more than that. If you are wanting to look into osteopathy with the specific goal of drastically improving sleep then I think you will leave disappointed. It does improve sleep but it isn’t going to suddenly see your baby sleeping through the night. If you can steer your sleep deprived brain in a more holistic direction then you will reap the benefits of this treatment. Our daughter’s overall temperament has changed. She is no longer stuck in a dominant stress and tension pattern which caused her to be permanently tight and uncomfortable, her colic was relieved, she became comfortable lying on her back and can turn her head and torso in both directions with ease. This has all contributed to a happier and more relaxed child and mama!
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