Osteopathic treatment can be invaluable for treating a wide range of health conditions in babies. The gentler, non-manipulative techniques, commonly known as ‘cranial osteopathy’ are especially suitable for treating young children, including newborn infants.
Birth is a very physical and perhaps stressful process on a baby’s body. At birth, much of a baby’s skeleton is more like cartilage, especially the plate-like bones that make up the skull. These ‘plates’ are quite soft and malleable, and are designed to overlap and glide over each other, enabling them to sustain the forces of labour and allow the head to pass through the birth canal. However, this pliability may mean that they are susceptible to strain and ‘moulding’, which is often evident after birth in babies that have asymmetrical, flattened or markedly pointed head shapes.
A degree of moulding is normal, and usually resolves within the first few days after birth along with the normal processes of adapting to breath in air, crying, and sucking. However, in some cases the moulding can be retained, and will need attention. Left untreated, the bony plates may remain overlapped, pulled apart, or under excessive strain. This in turn can cause tension or pinching in the delicate membranes that cover the brain and nervous system. Overstrain of tissues and compression of joints in the head, neck and upper back may also occur as a result. This may affect the nerves which come from the base of the skull and help in such body functions as feeding, digestion and breathing, and may cause other imbalances in the rest of the body.
