Cranial osteopathy

[BeanoNoir]

Has anyone done and will it be the magic answer to my feeding problems?

Ds is 16 weeks, shallow latch, fussing at breast, seemingly continuous feeding, trapped wind (swallowing air?), tense body, doesn't settle in cot at night. Had posterior tongue tie snipped at 8 weeks but on the verge of turning to ff (have already started giving occasional bottles) as I can't get by with this little sleep and this much feeding and still be a good mum to my 2 year old.

Currently seeking advice from local bf support. Cranial osteopathy has been mentioned. Any opinions/experience would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

yes, one or two sessions can improve things greatly.

all of mine were checked out at 3 weeks old - starting with DS1 who was a forceps delivery.

DD (my 6th) had an unusually arched palate which my osteopath picked up on and sorted. her feeding improved massively after this.

I can PM you the contact details of my osteopath - he has his main practice near Hampton Court, but has associates in Wimbledon and Teddington I think.
or maybe he can recommend someone to you.

I think every child should be checked after birth by a cranial osteopath - so many problems can be picked up and helped!

Thank you,

I'm in York and have already been recommended somebody local to me. What do they actually do to your baby please?

actually weirdly it looks like they are doing nothing!

it's the gentlest massage and manipulation on the skull plates.
they should check the inside of the mouth and the palate also might to a very gentle massage on the tummy.

nothing jerky or harsh - if baby cries it will not be from any pain the osteopath is causing them because none of it is painful.
(mine were in fact very relaxed)

I honestly believe that if you get a good practioner they are worth their weight in gold.

yes, definitely go with someone recommend to you!
there are some quacks around, same as any profession, who are just after your money - but one with a good reputation will be so busy they will not make extra appointments with you unless necessary!

good luck, hope things will improve.

First MN post but have had trouble feeding DD due to posterior TT so hopefully this helps...

Yes, agree...cranial osteopathy can help a lot. But strongly recommend you have the TT checked again as the symptoms you describe sound like a tongue tie is still there imo (they can heal back or not be fully snipped in the first place). This happened to my DD - snipped at 4 weeks and then redone at 4 months.

We never managed to fully establish bf (she's 4.5 months now) and have been mixed feeding since 5 weeks as her weight gain was very slow (probably as there was still some TT there). But the cranial osteopathy really helped - she became more relaxed, her digestion improved, less wind etc. If you're only doing a few formula top ups you may be able to reduce these if bf improves - kellymom.com has advice on this.

One other thing...it might be worth seeing an independent lactation consultant if you think there is still TT. Although it costs I went to bf support groups and no one spotted/mentioned TT (even though the symptoms were fairly classic and I specifically queried whether TT could be the problem). Posterior are harder to spot but the LC spotted it straight away.

Good luck!

Hi there,

I feel I should share my experience with you.
I used cranial osteopathy as a last resort, my LO had awful colic, I had mastits in both breasts, switched to co feeding as bf alone was so painful but bf was the ONLY thing that calmed her (very glad I stuck with bf though, it's such a joy now) I can only bf from one side as LO just wouldn't go on the other.

I went to an osteopath in Cardiff who came highly recommended and qualified, sessions were £32 for about 45 mins, I would have paid anything to help her little body settle. First session he checked her stomach for digestive problems, he very very gently felt and he said he couldn't feel any issues then he was feeling her head and she screamed, as he manipulated her neck/head he found a trapped nerve, most likely from birth and the cause of her only being able to feed from one side ams turning her head that way was painful for her. It was brilliant and definitely calmed her slightly, but was no magic cure, we went back for a check up and he felt no other tensions.

He basically told me that there was nothing more he could do for her and that habits such as stopping themselves crying, sleeping well would take a few weeks to learn since the pain in her head was gone. Beware of osteopaths that say the baby needs five six sessions, really one or two will do.

Good luck

I expect I'll get flamed for saying it, but just wanted to point out to OP that there's no evidence for cranial osteopathy having any effect on anything. Positive examples (like the PPs' examples) might have resolved due to time, placebo effect, or other variables, and might well be outnumbered by stories of failure that parents tend not to shout about when they've put such time, effort and money into the treatment.

So by all means try it as a last resort but do so as an informed choice that it's up there with homeopathy as expensive pseudoscientific woo, sorry.

(ducks to avoid barrage of missiles)

And just to add that osteopaths who examine joints in the neck / spine / jaw might have something useful to offer as the only evidence for osteopathy is for back pain in adults. But there are no joints in the skull (plates of bone are not joints) for cranial osteopaths to manipulate...

geeka

you have no idea what you are talking about and please do not try and re-evaluate somebody else's experience.
honestly.
that's like saying I'm not really feeling sick or childbirth didn't actually hurt that much.

It's just ridiculous.

And what do you mean there are no joints in the skull? They might not be called joints but each skull bone meets another with a suture which at birth are all completely moveable!

All, I'm not trolling and I don't think this is the place for an in-depth discussion of the placebo effect or whether 5g of fingertip pressure can affect skull plates.

Beano asked for opinions as well as experience of cranial osteopathy and that's why I posted. I didn't want the thread to be entirely one-sided when she was wondering what to do - it's all about informed choice.

I'm happy to agree to disagree with people who believe cranial osteopathy works.

Cranial osteopathy is in the same category as homeopathy - there's no science behind it, it hasn't been proven, but it is very unlikely to cause harm (so long as it isn't used to replace actual medical care).

Practitioners believe that they sense a "cranial rhythm" and use light touch to restore it to a natural balance.

It's absolutely brilliant. It sorted out a back injury for me which I'd had for years (and I'd already tried conventional chiropractice, osteopathy, massage, Alexander Technique etc etc). I took my DD at 2 weeks as she'd had a protracted forceps birth and her head was pretty mashed up (!) and the session really calmed and settled her.

Ignore the naysayers above and give it a go - I only took the babies for one session each as it seemed to sort out any birth issues straight away.

Hmmm, I can see both points of view here, and understand what geeka is saying. I'm prepared to try anything as long as it doesn't harm or have negative effects I think it's worth a try. If it's a placebo effect or something time would have resolved anyway I don't mind paying £25 to think it works at all! In fact I'd call that a bargain at the moment.

Like I said, as long as it won't have negative effects on ds I might try it and keep an open mind. If I do I'll report back, but I'll also be trying other things at the same time too. Going to get a referral again to check tt hasn't reappeared, for starters.

the thing with placebo effect is that it works because the person believes it works.

babies have no way of believing that the treatment works (or not) so results are obviously not faked/imagined.

especially when the result was my daughter being able to latch on and feed properly and started gaining weight after weeks of not being able to do so and loosing so much weight she went from 75th centile to 0.4 th centile. but yeah, it was just a "coincidence"! [tchconfused]

it's not about beliefs. it's about results. and strangers have no way of judging it either way - which is why I can't stand people arguing with me about what actually happened to me/us.
but I was there and the treatment worked.

good luck Beano

Placebo effects work on babies and animals as they work on the adult in charge.

As there is no proof behind homeopathy, amber teething necklaces, cranial osteopathy and similar, at the moment it is about beliefs.

sorry lily but that is bollocks.

I can not will to change the structure of the soft palate of my child!
there's proof, but if you wish to shut your eyes and ignore facts you can not be helped.

Zing's out

If you specifically see an osteopath who treats babies, it is not woo.
It is considered woo by many (including most medical people I know), yet an osteopath studies for many years and generally knows more about the minutiae of the skeletal anatomy than most drs.

There hasn't been the large scale testing on osteopathy that there has on mainstream medical drugs, as there is no Big Pharma behind them trying to make their millions.

Several "tried and tested" drugs are now being proved to work less well than placebos, and can be downright dangerous to boot, yet drs continue to prescribe these every day because they are paid to.

In my own family, I have seen plenty of damage caused by the medical profession (including my own son who is damaged by a "perfectly harmless drug"), yet the improvements in several conditions that my family have seen through an osteopath are staggering.

My mil was misdiagnosed for months by several drs. It was only when the osteopath sent her for an urgent scan, writing down the specific area the scanner was to focus on, when her bone cancer was found. Sadly too late, but if she'd continued to put her trust in the drs, and not tried a woo quack she may not have had the year that she did.

Sorry, this is a subject that really irritates me, to see hard working osteopaths who have trained and studied in real universities tarred with the same brush as a homeopath who has taken a weekend course.

Osteopathy and cranial osteopathy isn't the same thing Faverolles. Osteopaths manipulate and massage joints and muscles, and there is a fair bit of evidence that it works for back pain in particular.

Cranial Osteopaths believe they can sense a "cranial rhythm" by gently touching the head and can release stress and tension.

To be fair though lily, all the cranial osteopaths working in my area are all qualified osteopaths and have patients of all ages.
I have never come across one who wasn't qualified. I have also never come across "cranial rhythm" from a CO, but from a cranial sacral therapist, so maybe there are some blurred lines somewhere?

Here's some more information from cranial osteopaths: www.cranial.org.uk/

*Cranial osteopaths are trained to feel a very subtle, rhythmical shape change that is present in all body tissues. This is called Involuntary Motion or the Cranial Rhythm. The movement is of very small amplitude, therefore it takes practitioners with a very finely developed sense of touch to feel it. This rhythm was first described in the early 1900's by Dr. William G. Sutherland and its existence was confirmed in a series of laboratory tests in the 1960's and '70's.

Tension in the body disrupts the cranial rhythm. Practitioners compare what your rhythm is doing to what they consider ideal. This shows them what stresses and strains your body is under at present, and what tensions it may be carrying as a result of its past history. It also gives them an insight into the overall condition of your body, for example if it is healthy, or stressed and tired.*

YES! To your original question op.
I was at the end of our bf journey- late diagnosis of tt (week 12) LLL help with latch but still pain on feeding & not enough milk.

Saw cranial osteopath (paed specialist) within 2 appts her latch was fixed.

Tt had made her mouth & neck all tense & affected the latch.
Plus I pushed her out taking a few hrs- with her hand up by her ear as it turned out. So she got extra squished.

Osteo very gently held her head.
That's all I saw!
DD slept for an extra hour after the appts (unheard of) & no more pain on latching. Marvellous! Happier baby right away.

It just makes sense to me that extra squishing (or no squishing with cs) means they need a bit of sorting out.

And what a load of rubbish from geek person- of course there are plates in the skull that are all growing & fusing.

Other nay sayers- don't let them put you off seeing an osteo. It's v cheap compared to ff even if it doesn't work.

And osteopathy is a proper scientific discipline. Just because it has 'pathy' in the word doesn't mean it's anything similar to homeopathy. That's really ignorant.

Isn't it amazing how belief in cranial osteopathy appears to go with
(a) rudeness
(b) an inability to read previous posts properly

Geeka and Lily were nothing but polite.

1. I'm on the iPhone app so I can't see posters names or exact messages
2. I disagree with other posters. Didn't know I had to agree.
3. I don't 'believe' in it anymore than I believe in my big toe. It works, it is medical end of.

That's me out, just wanted to give my view to the op.

It isn't medical or science milktraylady - there is no actual evidence in works. It's a complementary therapy.

Ok yes the NHS website lists it as a complementary therapy. But it is a proper degree & postgrad training.
Ok it's not a medical degree like a GP does. But I'm guessing you think only a GP etc is a 'proper' doctor.

What can a GP do for a baby with an overly squished head from the birth? Nothing.
What can an osteopath do? Help the skull take its proper shape, relieving pain for the baby and improving the latch.

I see that as medical as they have effected an actual bodily change.
But yes they aren't a doctor.
Im happy with that. OP might be too.
Clearly you aren't. That's ok. I'm guessing we won't agree