How can Craniosacral Therapy Resolve Birth Trauma and Help You Breastfeed Your Baby?
By: Shikha Gandhi
Tags: Craniosacral Therapy, Lactation Consultation, Tongue Tie, Children Tongue Tie, Breastfeeding

How can Craniosacral Therapy Resolve Birth Trauma and Help You Breastfeed Your Baby?

“Is your baby constantly crying and refusing to feed? Have you considered that this could be due to trauma during pregnancy or birth? Craniosacral therapy is a time tested therapy to resolve such trauma”, says Effath Yasmin, Founder Nourish & Nurture and India’s premier lactation specialist who uses Craniosacral therapy for treating breastfeeding issues.

In her own words-

I have worked with scores of mums and helped them breastfeed their babies after a difficult birth experience using cranial work.

Birth trauma which usually happens due to interventions during birth can hold a sensory imprint in your baby’s body making it difficult for her to breastfeed.

On a physical level, it can cause your baby to cry incessantly and suffer from sleep irregularities, latching, and feeding issues. She may also prefer one breast over the other or reject both breasts. Vomiting, gas, reflux, tongue-tie are also linked to birth trauma and so are learning difficulties, depression, attention deficit disorder (ADD), attention deficit hyper disorder (ADHD), and even violent behaviour in the long run.

What is Craniosacral Therapy?

This is a gentle therapy or bodywork that engages with the energies that create and maintain health in our systems. It’s also called Biodynamic Craniosacral therapy or BCST.

I use it to support babies with birth trauma and to clear colic, reflux, bonding issues, and physical problems from birth, as well as to improve latching and feeding from the breast.

In one case, I was able to heal severe birth trauma in a five-month-old baby with a tongue-tie. Tongue-tie is a very common condition in babies that makes breastfeeding impossible because the baby’s tongue is virtually tied down and not able to move freely in the mouth. This means the baby can’t deal with the gush of milk during breastfeeding, making her squirm at the breast, or clamp down on the breast with her jaws, leaving them extra sore and painful.

Craniosacral therapy is an excellent way to navigate tongue-tie and other breastfeeding issues like refusing to breastfeed at all or an inability to latch on to a breast.

Dr Radhika Londkar, a dentist practising in Mumbai, brought in her baby boy at the age of six weeks with this condition. He also suffered from reflux issues due to the tongue-tie. Doctors called them digestive problems, but Radhika knew that a tongue-tie can affect the swallowing abilities of a baby, as well as create issues in the development of the baby’s face and airways.

I had several sessions with the baby and was able to treat the tongue- tie in four weeks. The treatment involved a minor surgery in which tight tissue under the tongue was excised. I supported the baby with cranial work before and after the surgery.

After craniosacral therapy, Radhika says her baby is a new child. As a five-month-old today, her baby boy has been excitedly using his new-found tongue to express his freedom, latching better than ever while feeding, and ready to enjoy the next phase of solid foods.

How Does Craniosacral Therapy Work?

It works on the parasympathetic nervous system or the nerves that facilitate rest, digestion of food, and self-repair in a patient of any age, including a baby. Usually, babies who are unable to latch and breastfeed have sympathetically overcharged central nervous systems. Their nervous system is so overwhelmed that it’s unable to repair itself. The baby thus is not able to integrate the experience of the birth and naturally latch on to a breast.

Cranial work usually leads to the unwinding of the birth process and facilitates self-correction of the patterns formed in a baby’s body due to birth trauma.

What Is a Typical Craniosacral Session Like?

When parents come to me with a breastfeeding issue, I start by observing the baby.

I observe her when she is at the breast and also while lying flat on a table to see her natural position and how she moves. I especially note if the bones of the skull are aligned properly.

During birth, the bones of the skull need to slide over each other so the baby can fit through the birth canal. After birth, the bones are supposed to slide back into their proper position, but sometimes they need gentle help to accomplish this.

When this alignment is messed up, the upper and lower palates of the baby’s mouth do not align properly, leading to breastfeeding issues.

Besides, an imbalance of the structures of the head, as well as trauma from the birth process itself, can cause constant irritation to the nervous system. It may also cause hypersensitivity, which can sometimes be the underlying reason why babies gag and cannot accept the breast in the centre or back of the mouth.

During a craniosacral session to correct breastfeeding problems, I usually gently touch the baby’s head or body, listening through the cranial rhythm, and help the bones, soft tissue, fascia, and internal organs to gently re-align and adjust back into place.

For example, in issues like the rejection of the breast, I touch the mother and baby both while the mother is holding her little one.

During cranial treatment, babies with birth trauma usually relive their trauma and may even re-enact their birth physically. Just by allowing the baby to express and relive what happened to her at birth fully, she feels listened to, and a lot of trauma is resolved. And once the baby has resolved its birth trauma, she can finally relax and bond with her mother.

And this usually causes breastfeeding issues to resolve naturally. We typically observe that the baby’s digestion improves, sleep becomes deeper, and she is more peaceful.

A craniosacral session usually lasts for about 30 minutes and I conduct no more than two sessions with a baby a week, with a gap of four to five days between the sessions. This allows the treatment to integrate into the baby’s body.

In Addition…

Along with the actual therapy sessions, I often recommend lifestyle changes for long-lasting results. I also advise that you, the mother, listen to your baby’s upset rather than rush to make her stop crying, because your baby may want to tell you something important.

As with adults, when an upset baby is listened to, she can start to resolve her issues, and you set the groundwork for a healthy, happy breastfeeding experience and a life-long relationship with her.

It’s also vital to treat birth-related trauma in the early years, through bodywork techniques like craniosacral therapy to prevent dysfunctional behaviours that may emerge in later years due to unresolved birthing issues.