My 4 month old daughter has been seeing a physio therapist because her range of motion in her arms and neck are not strong. Yesterday she advised me that my daughter should see an osteopathie specialist.
I made the appointment and wonder what to expect, how I can help and curious if any one could share their experiences or knowledge in the area.
This all started because my baby has a little bit of a flat spot on her head from favoring her right side.

NOBODY KNOWS ABOUT THIS AT ALL ???? CRY Well I will write how it goes for anyone who might need/use one in the future

I recently met two osteopaths in Den Haag. They have a small client group of children and showed me a recent DVD made by Dutch TV about their work. I was quite impressed, although as a Health Visitor of many years experience this is not a therapy that I would have recommended for young children.
Usually children who have "Flat spots" grow out of this as they gain head control. I saw the osteopaths use a small "syringe like" tool which flicks light pressure on the child's neck to release "tight" spots. I'm not sure that I really beleive in this but the mums on the video certainly did.

Hmmm did not know of the technique but I will visit and at least see what they have to offer.
I was curious about her little flat spot it is not too bad. So you mean it can go back to a better shape. I feel it is impossible to not have her favor a side since she sleeps on her back to avoid the whole sids thing…
They seem to be troubled by her always wanting to stretch out and she does not like to be in her car seat at all. She also favors her right hand however; she rolled over from back to tummy a couple of days ago and seems to be on target for her age. I don’t take everything they say as literal I am just opening my mind to some of it. I thought it was crazy when her physio told me my 4 month old should be sleeping from 8pm to 8am! I was like on what planet do you know babies, not any of my girls ever slept 12 hours at age 4 months more like 4 years if I was lucky!

Some babies do sleep for 12 hours at 4 months but most sleep about 10-11.5 hours, if they can go through the night. Usually babies are about 6 months before they don't demand a night feed. At 6 months there is no physiological reason for night feeds.
My children had, and many others, have flat spots while they are under a year but these usually right themselves as the child grows. It is slightly unusual to favour one side over the other at this stage and the physio will be trying to make sure that both sides of the body develop equally.
Success with the osteopath.

I just wanted to tell those who may be interested that we started the ostopathie and it was great. The lady was right on the money with the symptoms and I did not say anything to her ahead of time to be sure she was not pulling my leg.
She found that my daughter has a compressed nerve in her top vertibre(sorry can't spell) but basically a compressed nerve in her neck and so she started asking me if my daughter had this symptom and that symptom and she hit them all! Apparently this nerve is all connected to the other issues. So she started treatment that day and at first I saw little improvement nor did I expect much... but with in 48 hours my daughter was sleeping 8 solid hours at night a big improvement over the 4-6 hours with several night wakings. In addition she now likes to be on her tummy for play where before she could not tolerate it. This was only after one treatment!
I was very impressed the lady was professional and empathetic and spend a hour with us. I will continue to update the progress or PM if you have questions, I am happy to share.

I also wanted to add there was no weird syringe thing going on it was all gentle massage and not at all painful or uncomfortable for my 5 month old.

personally I think all babies and moms need to see a osteopath after delivery!!
that syringe thing sounds aufully like "Atlas PROfilax".........I do not recommend this for babies or children. if as an adult you decide to take the risk, fine. it does work, but it also does sometimes go very wrong...............

I Agree osteopath is wonderful and I think Moms should definitely do it for their babies. I highly recommend it.
My little girl had some issues that could easily have had been overlooked and dismissed as just normal baby woes...in addition some things could have been avoided if only we had the ostopathie treatment earlier.
I will tell her story for those who may benefit.
I decided on breastfeeding my daughter, despite the kraamzorg, doctors, consultatie bureau and a breastfeeding coach I paid for my daughter could not successfully breast feed. She had terrible acid reflux so bad it came through her nose; she cried in pain and would choke and stop breathing for a few seconds scary for us but it was heartbreaking to see her scared.
She also took forever to feed and could not latch on properly.
We were given tons of advice and nothing helped, she was even given medication for the acid reflux and it helped but not enough eventually she started to lose weight and I was exhausted. So I was advised to give up breastfeeding after 3 months of so much effort. I did try to pump exclusively for a while but my supply got smaller and smaller due to the fact I needed the baby to nurse because the pump just did not work for my supply exclusively.
I then had to get o a special formula that is by prescription only because she could not tolerate the regular formula. She still sucked funny on the bottle and they ruled out yeast infection, tongue tied etc.
In addition, she never seemed comfortable unless she was flat on her back and she seemed to be in pain when using her arms. She had good neck control but had very stiff movement in her arms and hands. We had lots of sleepless nights and when she was put on her back or in her car seat she cried as if in horrible pain.
Finally, we got a physio it helped but the physio said she thought ostopathie would help. We were willing to try anything so we made an appointment right away.
The osotpathie found that our daughter had a compressed nerve in her upper vertebrae at the base of her neck. (The problem)
She had me give my daughter a bottle and feed her and watched her eat. Even on the bottle my baby sucked funny… she made a click slurp sound. Immediately she noted that my baby sucked and put her tongue to the left. She said her coordination was off due to the compression on the nerve thus why all the feeding issues even when breastfeeding. In addition, this was why she was so uncomfortable with her arm movements and liked being on her back flat.
I was skeptical of any results after but she did one treatment…
The first 24 hours it seemed worse but we were told this might happen, after 24 hours she slept for the first time through the night. She also seemed more comfortable in her carseat.
Second treatment
Movement is much more normal in her arms, she likes to play on her belly and no longer only likes to be flat on her back. She sleeps every night through the night from 9:30pm until 7:00am and takes two long naps a day.
The physio was so impressed with her progress that we only have to see her every two weeks.

Today…. No longer do we like to be flat on our back we sit, we like car rides and we eat so much that we gained 1.5 kilo in only a month! We no longer have a skinny baby!
She still sucks funny but not as bad as before and is able to empty a 180ml bottle in 10 to 15 minutes. She is now eating solids, fruit and is swallowing very well.
It was bitter sweet to know her feeding problems were not just in my head or that I was not good a breastfeeding but I could not help but feel cheated out of the being able to breastfeed if only we could have seen the ostopathie first.
My baby was born with the cord around her neck and we were induced. She came very fast and quick once the contractions started. The ostopathie stated that 95% of cases like my baby are born like this. Apparently too fast can cause trauma and also the cord thing too.
I can only see more improvement as time goes by and we have a happy baby and we are happy parents.
The treatments are covered on our insurance but if you don’t have coverage the cost is not much because you only need a few treatments usually.
I also want to add our baby is now not taking any medications for acid reflux, she is still on special formula and we still thicken her formula but it is all natural and that is a lot better than the 3 medications she was on every day. Even the kinderarts was impressed but did not say much about the treatments and wanted us to continue her meds we opted to discontinue and see how it went…we were right she did just fine.
The treatments last about 45 minutes and it is just like a massage. My daughter really enjoys it. There is not any pain involved at all.

Hi Voodoo Doll,
Thank you very much for sharing your experiences with an Osteopath. I have a 3 month old baby who has also been diagnosed with a flat spot on her head and a preference for the right side. In addition, she throws up a lot and does not seem to be able to move her hands freely. We have been trying to give her some tummy time everyday, but she hates it and cries so hard that we do not have the heart to keep pushing her to do it.

Some friends of ours' recommended seeing an osteopath. We had our first appointment last week. The osteopath said that she seemed to have tension in the muscles at the base of her neck and in her upper abdomen. They could have been caused by the fact that I had a lot of trouble during labor.

I was induced, and even after 48 hours, my contractions were not strong enough and the cervical dilation was not sufficient. The baby's heartbeat started going down possibly because she had the cord around her neck. At that point I had to have an emergency C-section.

We plan to have our next session with the osteopath next week when he tries to massage the tense spots. We are not expecting miracles, but the least we can do is try. We will see how things go for our baby.

I am glad things worked out for your baby and that she is now happy and doing great. Thanks again for sharing your story.

Dear I'm a craniosacral therapist and I have knowledge about this issues, an ostheopathcan be very helpfull in this case. th etreatment must be very soft and light but can help very much comsidering the the head of a baby/child is not yet hardly bony it is very usefull to treat you child now. you are welcome to contact me for more detailed question.
What can bedone is to relesae the tension in the part of the skull you said most probably there must be a compression on neck where the arm nerves come from and that wcan be released...
I hope you got some idea from this.
I'm also register as a therapist and my treatments are refound by health insurances.
ciao unmi

I saw the osteopaths use a small "syringe like" tool which flicks light pressure on the child's neck to release "tight" spots.



My boyfriend threw out his lower back and had to go to a chiro when we were on vacation in the US. He used that sort of syringe plunger thing and it worked amazingly well. Usually it takes weeks of fysio here in NL before he's able to walk at all normally, much less sit for more than 5 minutes, but after one week of daily treatments there he was good enough to tolerate the flight home to NL. http://chiropracticactivator.blogsavy.com/ has some info about it (it is more beneign than in the picture, delivering just a thump when it's triggered by the doc). In our case it was used to relax the spasming muscles so that they didn't pull the spine and pinch the nerves.

But I also can't really imagine it's a good treatment for an infant, unless they make one with a really low-pressure thump.