Craniosacral for Babies
Fall of 2022, I had the joy of shadowing Katinka Locasio, a pediatric craniosacral practitioner. I immediately fell in love with the work, the babies, and their care givers. “This is my next step”, I thought. Thus, in 2023, I trained in craniosacral for infants. It’s been an amazing journey. I learned so much, that I just have to share!
In my first yoga class, I became fascinated with the body; how it works, how it responds, how it heals, and what it has to say to me. This passion led me towards teaching therapeutic yoga, then to bodywork, Reiki, craniosacral, lymphatic drainage and fascia release – for humans and animals. Guiding humans and animals back to their wholeness and ease in their bodies became my life’s work. I am excited to take the past 23 years of experience in working with adult humans and apply it to working with babies.
Infant craniosacral treats BOTH mama* and infant concurrently, so that as a pair, as a team, they can strengthen their bond and continue to deepen their relationship. This is true for an adopted child, and a child born from surrogacy.
The transition from in the womb to outside the womb is monumental. After birth, there’s a lot of figuring out for baby and mama. Baby is figuring out sensory stimuli, feeding, breathing, digestion, elimination, bonding, and integrating any medical interventions that occurred during birth. Enter craniosacral.
Mama is also going through a huge transition – birthing mamas have post birth recovery and healing from medical interventions, and hormonal changes, among others. All new mamas are experiencing exhaustion, self-care and infant care concerns, employment and financial pressures. Even in the smoothest of births and post birth situations, a newborn coming into the world is a huge transition for all. How mama feels about all these changes impacts her physical and emotional body. Enter craniosacral.
Further, mama’s level of confidence is often connected to the satisfaction of her child’s needs of feeding, emotional comfort, its digestion, skin condition, nervous system regulation, and overall physical wellbeing. An uncomfortable baby, one that’s not thriving, or one that seems inconsolable, is emotionally dysregulating to mama. Not being able to effectively meet baby’s needs can challenge mama’s confidence in herself as a competent caregiver. Which is not true. But the belief itself can have emotional implications on mama, and thus baby. Enter craniosacral.
Craniosacral is super gentle. Infants do not have years of compensating patterns and emotional baggage, like adults do. Thus, babies often respond really well within 1 -2 sessions. Because infant craniosacral treats both mama and baby, part of the treatment is teaching mama techniques to support her own and baby’s comfort and health. I love that!
Here’s a partial list of conditions that infant craniosacral can help with:
Torticollis – baby’s neck muscles are restricted causing the head to turn and rotate to one side. Results in baby having difficulty in turning its head, difficulty breast feeding on both sides, possible vagal nerve impingement, & asymmetrical facial features.
Plagiocephaly or flat head – infant’s soft skull is flattened in one area.
Lower jaw is tight, small – difficulty opening baby’s mouth widely enough for proper feeding and can impact ability to breath fully
Digestion – tension in neck and head can lead to impingement on vagal nerve which is directly connected to organs of digestion
No neck – as a result of in utero head compression (ie – a baby low in the uterus, or pushing in labor or fetal constraint), infant’s shoulders are close to ears, creating muscular tension
Tongue tie – craniosacral can Not remedy a tongue tie. Often a misdiagnosed tongue tie is due to lower jaw and tongue muscle constriction which craniosacral can help with. It’s often recommended to have 1 - 2 craniosacral sessions prior to being evaluated for tongue tie. Sometimes, what might be mistakenly diagnosed as a tongue tie, is a fascial or muscular restriction.
Check out my Instagram: @ellnerkim for treatment photos and more information about infant and adult craniosacral and lymphatic drainage.
I appreciate your trust in me. I am now taking appointments for infants and babies, in addition to adults and teens, at my Montclair location.
* I am using “mama” to define the primary caregiver and using the pronouns she/her. There are many different kinds of people that can be a primary caregiver, and there are many different pronouns to refer to them. For my own writing purposes, I use the word mama and she/her. Please know my intention is always inclusionary.