Cranial osteopathy –
all in the head?

Relief for colic

Very close to the occiput is a bony hole where the vagus nerve emerges travelling through the neck and chest to provide a nerve supply to part of the digestive system. Some cranial osteopaths believe that colic, (a real plague for some parents where the baby cries bitterly for its first three months)
is related to compression of the vagus nerve. This is probably coupled with an immature digestive system. Birthe says that she and her colleagues have had ‘massive success’ treating colic.
So it’s worth considering if your baby won’t settle in the evenings.

What was Tolly’s problem?

The first month after Tolly’s birth wasn’t easy. He didn’t feed well and threw up so much that his weight gain was poor.
I was hoping that cranial osteopathy, which had been highly recommended to me by numerous, now unharrassed, mothers, might help his digestion.
One friend found the procedure so successful for calming and soothing her babies that she practically stopped by at the cranial osteopath on the way home from hospital.

Tolly was always a diurnal baby, in that
I took him to bed when I went, and he slept well between feeds. I was applying a routine to bedtime – bath at six, followed by feed and bed by seven – but it wasn’t working. The earlier part of the evening was always trying. He’d cry and fuss and jump on and off the nipple.
My other children, Maud, 12, and Archie, nine, quickly learned to get captions up on the television screen.