OMM on an infant

For a clinical demonstration today, a doc did osteopathic manipulation (aka OMM) on a 3 month old.  The mom brought her baby in because he hadn't been sleeping well and had a hard time passing stool. The baby also got very anxious/uncomfortable during breastfeeding. While the mother was an osteopath as well, it's hard to treat your own baby, especially right after giving birth since there are so many hormones and emotions flowing through you.

It was incredible how the DO observed and treated. First she held him up and played with him a little. I think she said that babies are supposed to form C's (?) bc they've been in that position for so long. They are also supposed to straighten their arms to push up on you and help you lift them up... but they shouldn't straighten their legs because straight legs means they're hypertonic or something. She checked the baby's suction by putting her finger in the baby's mouth; there was little suck. Normally, it should be strong enough to pull a latex glove off your finger. Next, she checked the skull and said the bones were compressed as if it were a bowling ball. Babies' skulls should have a bit of space between the skull bones since everything is growing, but this baby's bones were tight together. ("No wonder this baby's unhappy!") 

The treatment was mind-blowing in a oddly mystical way. The doc did two major things. One made a lot of sense- that was to gently pull the cranial bones apart and give them some space to move. The second thing she did was feel up on the baby's palate to push on the vomer and I think the frontal bone (I forget exactly what she said she was going for), but she was trying to activate or release inhibition of the vagus nerve. The vagus innervates the viscera in the body including the bowels, so often after treatments like this, babies will need to poop a lot. She said there was one treatment where the baby pooped six times on the way home and overflowed the diaper! Anyway, so both of those things were meant to fix the baby's major issues. The baby was providing great suction at the end of the session as well. 

I have to admit, watching the treatment was hard for me. They had to apply constant pressure for awhile and the baby was squirming anxiously and crying a lot. I couldn't stop the waterworks thinking about how the mom must feel about her baby being in pain while she watched. I told Becka I didn't think I could do peds... at least right now, I am way too empathetic to hold in my emotions. But the positive effects probably outweigh that. It was weird, the baby was crying so hard and then all of a sudden it would stop. I guess because he felt better... It still sent chills down my spine though.

We were told that if you do OMM on a baby, you change their whole life. You can still fix issues when people get older but it just takes much longer and is much more difficult. Pretty wild stuff, that baby treatment.