Cranio-Sacral Therapy for Kids (and adults)

Cranio-Sacral Therapy (CST) has been around now for about 30 years, and is gradually getting a good reputation for being able to work with a lot of different "problems" which don't usually respond well to conventional interventions. I've been practicing it now for about 12 years, and use it to treat babies from about 2 weeks old, through to great grandmothers in their 90's. Babies and kids don't usually come with migraines or painful or numb scars or back pain or nerve damage or ME - a few of the more usual adult conditions which CST treats. Rather, babies and younger children are often brought for treatment with various types of behavioural or feeding difficulty, or colicky symptoms.

Just to go over the usual questions and get them out of the way... - is there any medical proof that CST works? No - fitting something as flexible as CST into the usual medical research framework is not easy, and so far there is no research which fits modern research criteria. CST was originally based on studies of its very positive effect on kids with dyslexia, cerebral palsy and ADHD - but these studies do not meet modern medical research standards. Are we trained doctors, or do we replace doctors? No - we refer usually ask and make sure that you've visited your GP for a check-up if symptoms suggest anything which may be dangerous. Is CST available on the NHS? No. Typical CST treatments last up to one hour are fully clothed, and adults would usually be lying down. It is a hands-on technique which uses very light touch (about the weight of a 20p piece) to work cooperatively with tiny natural physiological movements and rhythms of body tissue and fluids.

Colic-like symptoms (the baby isn’t comfortable in its own skin, needs comfort but can't find it and even pushes it away, head banging, continuous screaming for no apparent reason, etc) all respond pretty well to CST treatment. The causes appear to be anything from interrupted births, squashed heads (e.g. the baby has been engaged for too long before birth), umbilical cord cut too quickly...etc etc lots of different possibilities. Some babies seem to be able to brush these off, and others go into shock or end up with permanent headaches and belly aches which distress and confuse them. CST treatments almost always calm the baby and result in a return to "normal" behaviour and feeding. This is usually done by connecting up, and engaging with some fundamental rhythms of fluid and tissue in the spin and head.

Toddlers and young children are less easy to work with, because they want to get up and run around the room. It's still possible to help them, but the parent must be prepared to sit "watching grass grow" while nothing happens. One fundamental principle of CST is total respect and cooperation on all levels rather than coercion - which is why it is so effective. I treated a child with ADHD some time ago whilst he was asleep - he woke up for about 10 seconds each time to check me out, and the ADHD symptoms went after about 4 treatments. More usually kids are awake, but they still are OK with the touch being used (at least one parent is always in the same room).

ADHD is not particularly straightforward. When John Upledger carried out his original research in 1975, he found that about 1/3 of cases were caused by the Vagus nerve being trapped at the base of the skull, presumably from birth. This usually releases quite easily using CST. If this nerve is trapped, it often also causes food intolerances (especially sugar and colourings), which are also another cause of ADHD. The final 1/3 of ADHD cases were related to the child responding to the emotional environment in the home. Children are like emotional aerials connected to lie detectors. They can instinctively tell exactly what is going on. They therefore need the adults around them to be supportive and loving, and also upfront about how they are feeling and capable of recognising and accepting how the child is feeling. This at least gives the child a chance to learn how to be congruent with its emotions - a great asset in later life.

The same condition which traps the Vagus nerve can also in a small number of cases lead to dyslexia and dyspraxia, both of which usually respond to CST treatment to varying degrees. A trapped Vagus nerve also cuts off the conscious mind from the body, reduces self-awareness, and may be a cause of low-level aspberger syndrome. Certainly adults use this mechanism (tightening the muscles at the top of the neck) to cope with unpleasant events by cutting off the feelings. The problem is that if the Vagus nerve is trapped, then the body is in a permanent state of fight/flight, and this inbuilt physical stress factor drives many adolescent and adult behavioral patterns and illness syndromes (of course, it’s more complex than that, but this is a very short article).

Finally onto mothers - who usually come last when the baby has been born. If the birth was difficult, there can be factors other than normal exhaustion which result in not coping very well. One symptom of shock is to be not really coping but telling everyone that you are. Putting it simply, if you are pain-free and "coping" then the baby is more likely to be happy and well. Scar tissue from episiotomies and caesarians occasionally gives trouble later on - if you start getting headaches or backaches a few months after the birth (about 5% of births - I'm guessing), then it may be the scar tissue, and if so, it usually responds pretty quickly to CST treatment.

Andrew Cook is a registered CST practitioner at the Complementary Health care Clinic, 34 Exchange Street, Norwich. He can be contacted on 01603 665173, and more information on CST is available on his website http://www.hummingbird-one.co.uk.