Becoming Domestic

Happy now… 

Our little baby daughter is now 12 weeks old but for the first 10 weeks of her life she has been in obvious discomfort/pain. She has cried an awful lot especially when put down on her back for nappy changes, naps, in the car seat. She has also suffered with what appears to be highly acidic regurgitation of small amounts of digested milk. The only time she was not crying would be the first half an hour of the day when in fact she was a very alert and incredibly smiley little thing.

Apart from be worried about her and defend her when my husband nicknamed her The Bad Baby I was pretty sure there was nothing much I could do for her as when I took her to the GP they checked her ears, throat and temperature and declared that she was fine. She was gaining weight at a very good rate, being breastfed we knew there were no allergies to cows milk causing her pain and I just hoped she would turn a corner as she grew, became more sturdy and upright and her stomach became more mature.

Every nap time was taken in my blessed sling which she was constantly carried in as there was no way I could leave her crying on her back to do even the smallest household chore. If I stopped moving for even an instant she would wake up with a start and the crying would resume. Unlike my previous babies she did not nod off instantly in the car but if she did she would only stay asleep while we were moving and traffic lights caused her to wake up howling again.

I felt so so sorry for her. My mum was concerned for her as she remembered my brother being in a similar state when he was an infant and she claimed it (a) broke her heart and (b) held him back developmentally as instead of people cooing and interacting with a baby who is crying so much they are just in their own world of distress.

I chanced upon a leaflet at the local baby weighing clinic for a local osteopath which mentioned the benefits of treating ‘unsettled’ babies with cranial osteopathy as traumas from the pregnancy or birth can leave some babies with constant chronic pain such as headaches, stomach disorders, and can even hinder them from establishing breastfeeding if their little jaw bones haven’t popped back into the position they were designed to be in.

As a complete and utter sceptic but having reached the end of my wits having listened to my poor poor baby scream in my ear for so many hours each day especially when a bit of milky sick came up I made an appointment and trundled her down to the osteopath clinic.

Peter the osteopath took many details about what had brought me to his door, the baby’s symptoms, what kind of pregnancy I had and how she was born (by emergency c-section due to her being entagled with her umbilical cord wrapped around her neck). He explained that every time she had moved in utero the cord around her neck would have yanked her stomach where her belly button is and also she may have stayed in an awkward position to accomodate this discomfort.

He lay the tiny tot on the huge treatment couch and very gentley placed his hands underneath her back, then her pelvis, then her neck and determined that he could indeed feel areas of treatable tension in one of her shoulders (the side she hates to lie on when being fed) and around her pelvis. He then worked with tiny tiny movements to release this tension for her.

While she was being treated the baby stopped crying, looked intently at the nice gentle man and smiled her beamiest smile (meanwhile I was blubbling into my hanky). For the rest of that day last week she then cried more than she had ever cried, refused to feed or to sleep at all, she conked out at bedtime as she always does and then ever since has cried only when hungry or tired just like normal babies do. She now naps in her own bed with just 5 minutes of ‘I am not sleeeeeeepy’ tears before she nods off. We no longer have to rock her vigourously for hours just to help her find a comfort enough to sleep.

I was still slightly sceptical and thought it may just be the coincidence of her growing and may have been much improved without my paying £40 for the cranial osteopath session but then Bealers my husband found himself at the same osteopath when an old recurring back complaint flaired up. Bealers purposefully witheld all the details of the back injury but the osteopath’s diagnosis was consistent with x-rays he has had in the past and the massage/manipulation he performed on him has left him feeling much better if a little sore.

Somehow his faith in the powers of osteopathy has made me come to terms with the fact that I am so extremely grateful for this man’s work with my newest 12 week love and only wish I had found his leaflet in the post-natal ward the week she was born rather than her be in pain for the first 10 weeks of her little life.

Further reading:
http://www.cranial.org.uk/page3.html

Posted on April 18th, 2008 under Baby and Pregnancy, Being Green, Family Health • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback