What is pediatric osteopathy?
Osteopathy is a therapy that can be applied to people of any age, of course adapting the techniques to the situation of each patient: age, fragility, disease…
In the case of children, the techniques used are very gentle and respectful of the time of growth, especially in the early years. In the first session, a complete medical history is taken, gathering information about the pregnancy, birth and evolution of the baby/child since then. Subsequently the exploration of the child is complete, so the Osteopath gets an idea of the overall functioning and not only of the symptomatic area. After arriving at a diagnosis, the therapist begins the treatment with an appropriate approach to the problem.
Can a baby be treated with osteopathy? How is the treatment performed?
The baby can be treated from birth. The treatment is always manual with very soft techniques in which the Osteopath will place his hands on different parts of the baby’s body relaxing structures/tissues that he has observed in his previous exploration needed it. With this we try to obtain a better functioning of their systems. In the youngest, normally the digestive system, everything related to ingestion, sucking, swallowing, reflux and evacuation.
What are the main indications for osteopathic treatment of children?
As I mentioned, in the youngest children, the main reason for consultation are problems in the digestive system, followed by sleep problems, irritability…. The best thing to do is to see them as soon as possible in order to help if there are sucking problems, reflux that hinders ingestion, colic, constipation? in order to regularize the acquisition of sleep, feeding and evacuation routines. Another very common presentation are asymmetries or postural preferences, when the baby has a strong tendency to move to one side, which causes him not to “discover” and explore equally both sides of his body and sometimes causes that, due to an asymmetric support, the head is deformed, which is called plagiocephaly. As the child gets older we can address the difficulties of psychomotor development as well as bad positions of feet and legs at the beginning of sitting and walking, until the pre-adolescent age where we pay much attention to the back and its correct alignment with growth. In reality, the Osteopath tries to accompany and optimize the different phases of development with their problems and possible difficulties.
Can a treatment have adverse reactions?
The treatments are shorter than with an adult and the techniques are gentler, so there are usually no adverse reactions. But any change due to the treatment requires an effort to be made, so the baby/child may feel more tired and sleep more, or explore the novelty of this new sensation by moving more and being more restless. All this in a very brief way.