Osteopathic Treatment for Newborns and Babies is the title of a Free Workshop that will be presented by Mary Anne Morelli Haskell, D. O. on Friday, May 3 at 11:30 a.m. at 1224 10th Street, Suite 207, Coronado, CA 92118.
Newborns love gentle osteopathic treatment. A wonderful act of prevention is to have your baby checked by an osteopathic physician skilled in gentle cranial treatment in the first week of life. Birth is a wonderful dance between baby and mom as the baby’s head slowly molds to mom’s pelvis for safe passage. The baby’s head is made to overlap so it can become as small as possible during delivery. The first breaths and nursing at the breast are the ways nature designed the baby’s head to resume its shape.
But if there has been a very quick or very long birth, a baby who is large in relation to mom’s pelvis, multiples, or any other cause of birth trauma, an osteopathic treatment can be of great benefit to the baby (and mom). Babies born by C-section miss compression and re-expansion of the ribcage as the baby travels down the birth canal which prepares the baby to breathe and clear fluid from the lungs. There may be trauma from a long labor prior to the c-section or in utero molding. Many of the common issues of newborns such as difficulty establishing nursing in the first 24 hours, excess spitting up, colic, irritability, difficulty sleeping, a misshapen head and torticollis (a wry neck) are structural issues that can be helped with gentle cranial osteopathy.
It is ideal to see babies soon after birth, but resolving the effects of a difficult birth can begin later as well. A single treatment or a series of treatments may be indicated depending on the symptoms, history and exam findings.
This is prevention at its best. A happy baby is such a joy.
