Cranial osteopathy –
all in the head?
The gentle manipulations of cranial osteopathy might provide an answer
Tiny Tolly, six weeks old, lay on his back on the examination table. Birthe, sitting behind his head, placed her hands under him, her fingers pointing towards his toes. Any movement she made was quite imperceptible. Tolly promptly went to sleep and lay blissfully unaware that his sacrum, or flat bony plate at the bottom of the spine, was being gently manipulated through his nappy.
Birthe Pickwoad practises cranial osteopathy at the Brackenbury Clinic in Shepherd’s Bush, London. She works by checking the movements of the central nervous system to locate any areas that aren’t moving freely. ‘You work on the suture you feel is restricted,’ she says. ‘The basic principles of osteopathy are the same whatever age the patient is – you are looking to find freedom of movement.’
Cranial osteopathy is a bit of a misnomer
The treatment is for the whole body,
not just the head. Practitioners deal with problems brought on by the process of birth but if a mother experienced a minor accident or emotional problem during pregnancy, these can also affect the newborn baby. The adjustments required are gentle and precise manipulations to correct alignments.
Why choose this form of treatment for a small baby?
When a baby is born, he experiences enormous pressures as he enters the birth canal, rotating from back to front, and finally emerging with the back of his head first. The sutures, or joins, in his skull are still flexible, and can slide over each other to accommodate the compression. These changes can persist after birth – not everything springs back immediately – sometimes leaving the baby uncomfortable. Nerves within the skull can be irritated, and the baby can become fractious as a result. The cranial osteopath aims to decompress
the sutures, making the baby more comfortable and therefore more settled.
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