Importance osteopathic review of the Baby

Importance osteopathic review of the Baby

“Performing an osteopathic review on babies is as important as going to the review with your pediatrician. Everything is for your health. “

The baby to be able to pass through this birth canal will not be finished with the maturation / ossification of his skull and for this the fontanelles exist.

In infants’ fontanelles we can directly touch a soft and depressible tissue called meninges. This tissue that feels soft and depressible protects the entire brain by upholstering the skull and spine.

Our birth is what we call our first trauma. Overlaps may occur between cranial bones due to rapid or forced labor where the mother pushes for many hours.

And whenever there is an instrumental childbirth, there will be a repercussion at the cranial level, that is, the turning of the meninges, cranial overlaps, or a decrease in the size of the cranial holes.

• 12% of children only have a free skull, with no symptoms.
• 82% of children have a head problem but no symptoms.
• Among children without symptoms 39% have a free occipital in their cranial movement, 18% have a free, spheno-basilar symphysis.
• In agitated children, 95% have an occipital lesion and can be treated.

  “The musculoskeletal stresses that the infant undergoes during birth can cause problems for his entire life. Recognizing and treating these dysfunctions in the period immediately following birth presents one of the most important phases of the phases of preventive medicine in the practice of osteopathic medicine. “

For more details visit Osteopath Melbourne.

Babies and children suffer from all types of pain (head, joint, visceral, etc.), are stressed, depressed and, in short, suffer from almost the same pathologies as adults. The only problem is that infants and toddlers do not talk and cannot complain and / or explain themselves as adults. “They simply” cry, do not sleep well, regurgitate, do not eat, vomit, have mucus, allergies, respiratory conditions, etc.

What happens at birth?

At the time of delivery, the baby undergoes compression forces due to passage through the narrow birth canal that is the pelvis and pelvic muscles of the mother.

The fetus, especially at the end of gestation, is confined to a place where it has less and less space. Your body is then compressed against the ribs, pubis and pelvis…

The bumps to which the child undergoes during the passage through the birth canal   Tend to compress it between the bones of the mother’s pelvis.

But that is not all, because the most difficult for him will be the moment of delivery, where his small body will have to pass through a very narrow conduit and also be subjected to enormous compression forces, which try to expel him. So narrow is this duct, in relation to your head, that it is necessary for the bones of the skull to “mount” or overlap one on top of the other to allow the baby to pull out the head.

The output of the shoulders is not easy either. There are children who are injured in the nerves of their neck or break their clavicle, when at the time of delivery they pull out of their head, to pull the shoulders.

Sometimes the child’s exit is difficult, either because it is large, there is little expulsion force, or the duct is narrow. Then instruments such as forceps, suction cups, spatulas, which can damage the bones of the baby’s skull, are used.

Do only those born by natural delivery or by cesarean section suffer?

This type of injury will not only be suffered by children who come into the world through “natural childbirth”. There is a belief that babies born by cesarean section “suffer less.” Possibly, your head is not subject to as many compressions as in a natural childbirth, but caesarean delivery is by no means an act of softness.

Usually, you have to push the baby hard, so that your baby’s head appears through the cesarean section, which can lead to bruises and injuries, when his head hits the bones of the pelvis (especially the pubis). Once the head starts to appear, it is very frequent to remove it by the use of forceps (in caesareans is used double that in natural births).

In summary, it can be said that childbirth (whether natural or by caesarean section) is a traumatic event for the baby’s body and especially for its larger part: the head.

In cesarean births, there is no such compression of the skull as it passes through the birth canal, but these compressions are necessary for proper development of the cranium , and therefore of later functions. These infants are advised to undergo an osteopathic review in order to study and treat these potential problems and release them to give them better well-being and psychomotor development.

At birth, the baby’s skull bones are still “mounted” on top of each other, remembering that passing through the birth canal is no easy task. Many of these finishes spontaneously resolve with the internal pressure that the baby develops when crying, sucking and innate capacity for self-healing, they naturally remodel. But others will require osteopathic intervention to release them.

While these “distortions” occur especially at the level of the skull, they can create alterations in any part of the organism.

As a consequence, the baby must cope with stress from the start, which is uncomfortable and can affect his future behavior and structural development.

What pathologies can be treated and prevented?

• Plagiocephaly ( flattened head). Moderate is that an osteopath can treat, as there is no fusion of the skull sutures. This particularity distinguishes it from a “craniosynostosis”, where there is fusion of the sutures and the treatment no longer corresponds to us. Cranial asymmetry may be present from birth or may develop during the first months of life.
• Congenital torticollis ( cranial nerve involvement or overeating in labor)
• Obstruction of the tear duct
• Warm sticks
• Ocular disorders ( strabismus ),
• Irritability, insomnia …
• Rhinitis, or sinusitis .
• Symmetries in the mouth , creating suction disorders, and, as a consequence, influence the teeth or cause changes in the shape of the dental arches. An anomalous suction favors the ingestion of large amounts of air, which, together with an alteration in the transit of food from the mouth to the intestine, can cause regurgitations   Frequent and abundant, recurrent and prolonged colic, as well as diarrhea or constipation.
• Baby who does not sleep well .
• Baby crying constantly .
• Digestive problems (X-cranial impairment) : infant colic, constipation and gas , gastroesophageal reflux, regurgitation . –
• Respiratory problems : Bronchitis, tonsillitis, asthma, frequent colds .
• When the baby can not suck (cranial nerve involvement IX), or prefers one breast to another (by cervical contracture for XI)
• Obstetric Brachial Palsy (by excessive traction of the baby’s arm, and consequently of the nerve plexus during delivery)
• Hip dysplasia (inability to perform hip abduction)
• Disorders of the foot ( flat foot, cavo , zambo …)
• Scoliosis: 90% of children’s scoliosis is “idiopathic”, medicine does not know why this vertebral torsion, for osteopathy are the consequence of torsions produced in the skull when they are babies, being easily correctable at this age.

All these types of pathologies can be treated, resolved and relieved by osteopathic treatment . It is important that the treatment be combined between the therapist and the parents.

What is the treatment?

Pediatricians, midwives, osteopaths and, in short, any person related to the health and care of children, should know that 9 out of 10 babies born are suffering from pathologies that can be treated by a qualified osteopath. Pathologies that, if ignored, will mark the childhood, adolescence and adulthood of this living being, so usually ignored.

Osteopathy dedicated to the treatment of infants and children allows, first, to quickly recover from their ailments and dysfunctions to our patients and, secondly, to avoid the inevitable sequels that could mark their balance and subsequent development. It is important to point out that the vast majority of the pathologies suffered by adults are sequelae that are not adequately treated for pathologies suffered during childhood.

The collection of information by the physiotherapists and osteopaths is very important. We will try to collect all the possible data, on the one hand by asking questions to the popes, and on the other hand, observing the behavior of the baby in order to be able to make a correct diagnosis.

Being able to affect your sleep patterns, your breastfeeding habits, your emotional states, your crying and your general state of well-being.

Within the clinical history that is made, we are also interested to know:

• How has the mother’s pregnancy been
• How many weeks
• How was delivery:
  • Difficult, too short or too long
  • Triggered, accelerated or stopped
  • Instrumented (forceps or spatulas, suction cup)
  • Face or buttocks
  • Caesarean section, planned or emergency
  • Before term or after term
• If the baby had colic the first few months.
• If you cried at birth
• Breastfeeding

Obtain neonatal information:

• Apgar score
• Crying at birth
• Jaundice
• If you stayed in an incubator
• Hip dysplasia or the existence of any nervous paralysis.
• Modeling the skull

And finally we will inform the postnatal period or childhood; Collecting data on feeding, sucking difficulties, oral habits, sleep habits, colic, regurgitation, asymmetric movements or on the child’s psychomotor development.

Our treatment consists of very soft cranial manual techniques that act on elasticity and cranial plasticity. This flexibility allows the osteopath to act effectively.

Working on the bony fibers we can act on the abnormal growth of a bone of the cranial sphere to prevent possible alterations.

In Silvia Molins Clinic, we are specialized and trained in pediatrics, the techniques that we use very soft to give the baby the physiological balance.

Osteopathy in newborns and children allows us, on the one hand, to rid the child of his ailments and dysfunctions, thus eliminating the symptoms, and on the other, if it is even more important, the child’s body is allowed to develop properly, Possible sequelae or consequences of an alteration in the natural development of the newborn.

Pediatric osteopathy uses gentle, gentle and tremendously respectful manual techniques, resulting in profound changes within the body of the baby or child. It uses procedures towards a new non-invasive but highly effective balance. With this, we allow the different systems of the body (nervous, immune, muscular and circulatory) to work effectively.

It is advisable to treat it before 6 months of life because of the great potential for change that it has, and for the first closure of the lambdoidea fontanelle that is closed in this period) since the earlier the treatment, the lower the stresses it has And adaptations of the compressions, and the greater the benefit for the baby.

However, the baby can be treated at any age.

The baby’s skull is totally malleable, that is, the information we give you in terms of movement will accept it without another type of defense response.

In what cases can I bring my baby to make the appointment?

• Child Functional Impairments: Cranial or facial compression for long, difficult parts with forceps and suction cups.
• Born by Caesarean section.
• Postural disorders: a stance that catches our attention, the head turned always on the same side and does not tolerate any other posture ….
• Behavioral disorders: restlessness and sleep disturbances, continuous crying, very nervous or too quiet baby.
• Digestive disorders: cramping of the baby, constipation, regurgitation, problems in suctioning, force to defecate …

In what cases can I bring my child to make an osteopathic consultation?

• Back pains.
• Motor or gait disorders, deformities such as genu varus, genu valgo, and scoliotic attitudes.
• Problems of the respiratory system such as otitis, bronchitis ….
• Digestive problems: constipation, abdominal discomfort, meteorism …

Therefore, our advice is to do a review of osteopathy after the birth of a baby, in order to study these possible problems and release them for better well-being and development. The earlier the treatment, the smaller the adaptations of the compressions and the greater the benefit of the baby.