Craniosacral therapy for babies and children is particularly valuable and effective. The establishment of healthy patterns at an early age plays a significant role for the whole future of that individual, both in their health and in their abilities. One of the main causes for symptoms in babies and children is birth trauma. It doesn’t matter what kind of birth one undergoes, it is traumatic and can create patterns or restrictions thereof.

Craniosacral therapy helps with:

•    Hyperactivity, ADD, ADHD
•    Learning difficulties
•    Sleeping difficulties
•    Feeding problems
•    Reflux and colic
•    Delayed development
•    Epilepsy or seizures
•    Excessive crying
•    Frequent tantrums
•    Obsessional behaviour
•    Behavioural problems
•    Dyslexia
•    Recurrent ear, nose and throat infections, tonsillitis
•    Headaches
•    Cerebral palsy
•    Squint or lazy eye
•    Dental and TMJ problems
•    Post natal depression

In this day and age, there is a vast difference in how babies are being born. In many cases, mothers are induced, waters are broken, labour is hurried and babies get stuck. This all creates stress. The relaxation of the mother is fundamental for the successful natural delivery of a child. Often there is so much fear attached to birth, and / or going to hospital, that dilation is stopped and caesarean’s need to take place. Sometimes babies are born with ventouse (suction) or forceps, which though may be critical at the time, creates its own sets of problems. When caesareans take place, this creates a huge change in pressure in the womb. Babies are pulled out, usually by the neck into a room which is filled with bright lights and the smell of hospital. This is a vastly different space to what your baby has been exposed to for the last nine months. Sometimes babies are taken away from their mothers or not given to their mothers immediately after birth. All of the above leads to many patterns of restriction within a babies system which can become symptoms thereof.

During the birth process, the baby’s head is forcefully compressed as it twists through the narrow birth canal. As the cranium of a new-born baby is soft and membranous, this will allow the head to compress, however, intense compression of this delicate structure over many hours can push the bones of the head against each other. Should the bones not re-bound back into the correct position, this new arrangement can prevent the proper formation of the skull and affect development of the brain or impact on other structures such as nerves and blood vessels. As the body is connected from head to toe via membrane, this can then cause other problems further down in the body. The body’s inherent self-healing powers usually allow self-correction, however, this is not always the case. If the labour has been long and hard, with the baby stuck in the birth canal with its head engaged, or the baby perceives something to be traumatic, this can imprint physically, mentally or emotionally, possibly inhibiting full and proper growth and development of the baby as a whole.

The tight fit through the birth canal is extremely important for a baby’s journey into life on earth. The squeezing and pushing motion of the uterus stimulates the baby’s entire body, preparing and stimulating the nervous system and the brain for the new world outside the mother’s body. This action prepares the baby to be able to breathe on its own. As quoted from the Immaculate Deception II, “It also readies the baby’s brain for a huge learning spurt, in which it takes in all the new sensory information from the world it enters the moment it is born, and begins to make the complex series of adjustments that will enable it to survive.” It is the first journey of a child’s life and it is meant to be awake and aware so that the child becomes a fully active participant in their own life. Research has shown that caesarean born babies struggle to get going, mentally, but also their physiological systems have a tendency to be more sluggish.

Travelling down the birth canal also stimulates the adrenal glands to produce the hormone that allows the baby’s body to do on its own all those things that were done in the womb. This stimulation does not occur in the case of caesarean births and as a result most caesarean-born babies have initial problems in clearing their lungs and getting breathing going. Babies who are born via caesarean can be affected in many ways. Natural birth is essential in that the baby undergoes a sort of initiation into life. Birth is challenging and so is life, but by the baby going through this challenging process and then being held by parents, with love and support afterwards teaches the baby that with all the challenges in life there is support and love (and light at the end of the tunnel). It is part of the foundation of a child's life and as the mom and child goes through this together, this forms an incredible bond and connection between the two. Babies who are born via caesarean miss all of this. They are whipped out, often from a soothing comfortable space in the womb, which is shocking for them (a baby initiates labour when it is ready, not the mother). They go from a space of compression and are not able to naturally decompress so this creates a sluggish system, hence them not being able to complete tasks or even to start tasks.

Craniosacral therapy is very gentle and non-invasive. Babies can be treated whilst cradled in the mother’s arms and even better, whilst asleep. There is no need to disturb the child by undressing them, since the craniosacral patterns can be clearly felt through clothes. When working on small children, they are given the freedom to play on the floor and find a comfortable space to be, either sitting or lying down whilst treating.

The earlier you get your child assessed the quicker it is to treat.

If we can't release these patterns of trauma we compensate for them so that by the time we are adults they are deeply engrained in our system. They can still release, it just takes longer.

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