Oh, the Places You’ll Go! Those are famous words from Dr. Seuss and so fitting for our blog today about Pediatrics and Osteopathy. Jen wrote a couple weeks about orgasms, seems about right that we follow that up with a blog about kids☺
Now, you may be asking yourself how these precious little bundles of joy could possibly need osteopathic treatment, but as we think about how they enter into the world, it can be quite the adventure for some.
Let’s start with the birthing process
At birth, your baby’s skull is very adaptive. There are sutures between the different cranial bones and where the sutures meet, there are fontanelles or soft spots. You can feel these on your children! These fontanelles ossify or harden at different time; some harden at birth and others not for 6-8 months or even 18 months later. The cranial bones are flexible and malleable for a reason. They help your child negotiate its way through the birth canal (if it’s a vaginal delivery) and ensure there is limited pressure exerted on critical structures (think the brain and SC…) Babies rotate as they come down the birthing canal to fit their shoulders, pelvis and head through mom’s pelvis. By having an adaptive skull, they are able to work their way out, but it is also easy to see how if they twist a different way or get stuck along the way how strain patterns can develop.
Compression at the base of your baby’s skull can put pressure on several of the cranial nerves as they exit the skull, which in turn could lead to difficulties with latching, feeding, sucking, getting enough milk and even digestive upset. Some moms can feel as if it’s their fault that their child isn’t getting enough milk, but it may stem from a mechanical issue and too much pressure on the cranial nerve innervating your babies tongue instead of a problem with mom’s milk production.
You may have heard about plagiocephaly, where there is malformation of the child’s skull (there is usually greater development in one area of the skull as opposed to uniform development of the entire skull) and it is usually accompanied with a flat spot on either the back or the side of the skull. Plagiocephaly can occur for many reasons including forces during the delivery process or from your child’s position during pregnancy. As your child’s brain grows, the cranial bones shift and expand to support the growth process. Depending on the severity of the malformation, for some newborns, their own growth is enough to reduce the distortion in addition to tummy time to reduce the pressure on the flat spot of the cranium, but for others, manual therapy intervention is beneficial. We spoke earlier about how malleable a child’s skull is, and if timed correctly (prior to the ossification process) osteopathic treatment can assist in removing the mechanical forces that are contributing to the deformation. By treating these early on, ideally we can work to mitigate any worsening adaptations throughout the body.
Sometimes the use of forceps or a vacuum is needed to help deliver your baby, these tools, although important, can also have an impact on the cranial bones due to their adaptive nature. Strain patterns can also occur from intrauterine (inside the womb) factors-with twins or triplets it can get pretty cozy in mom’s uterus.
“As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.”
The above quote by Alexander Pope is so helpful in depicting how having your newborn assessed at a young age, we can help to remove these strain patterns and in turn this can potentially help with your child’s motor and neural development. In some countries, newborns are treated osteopathically in the hospital prior to going home for the first time!
Some children are born with torticollis. This is a fancy word describing your child’s head position where it’s rotated one way and sidebent the opposite way. They can develop torticollis from a difficult birthing process or by their position in the womb. It could also be caused by neurological concerns or compression of the nerve that innervates the SCM muscle (also known as the sternocleidomastoid muscle). Your osteopathic practitioner can help identify if your child would benefit from osteopathic treatment or if further medical follow up would be beneficial.
So what can you expect during an osteopathic session for your little one?
Your osteopathic practitioner will get a history and an understanding of how the pregnancy progressed. We may ask questions including how your child was positioned during pregnancy, were medications prescribed during pregnancy, were there any car accidents or falls that occurred during pregnancy. Did you perceive that your child moved around a lot during pregnancy? We’ll ask about delivery, was it a C-section or a vaginal birth? Both can impact the child in different ways. Was it a quick labour or were you in labour for several days? Did you they use forceps or a vacuum to help with delivery? How large was your baby when it was delivered, was it a breech delivery, what position were you in for delivery. All these questions help us to get an understanding of any forces or strains that your child may have experienced entering the world.
We will then inquire about life since birth. Is your child achieving the different growth milestones-are they lifting their chin, sitting with support, grasping objects, standing with help, crawling, walking etc. In addition to asking about their feeding schedule, are they having trouble breast feeding, are they having trouble keeping milk/food down, is there enough milk production, are they gaining weight, are they sleeping (this should happen!)?
Once we get a detailed history, we can move towards assessing your child and seeing if there are any areas of their body that would benefit from treatment. We may use toys or stuffed animals to help entertain, distract and engage your child during treatment and to help make them feel comfortable (and you as the parent) during the sessions. Often you will find that your child can indicate to us an area that they concerned about, even without the use of words!
Need more information? Have Questions? Get in touch!
It can be scary to acknowledge that your child may require additional assistance outside of you as parents at such a young age, but we are here to support and help your family! In addition to supporting you during this time, we are lucky to be able to help you set your child up to be the best they can be!
We offer free 15 consultations to assist you in determining if osteopathic treatment is right for you and coming this summer to Ananta Wellness & Osteopathy, ‘baby days!’ Reach out if you’re interested or would like additional information.