Osteopathy for babies and children: what is done, and what is not

With newborns

Birth is a passage under constraint, however it unfolds. Some babies keep a marked preference for a few weeks. They turn their head one way rather than the other, settle always into the same curve, feed better on one side. Parents see it before I do.

What I do amounts to very little. I watch how the child settles, what they do spontaneously, what bothers them. Then gentle, sustained contacts that give the baby time to release on their own. A session rarely runs past twenty minutes. He sleeps through half of it.

What I will never say

That osteopathy resolves colic, reflux, sleep or ear infections. Those claims circulate widely. They rest on nothing solid, and they do harm to families as much as to the profession.

A baby who cries a great deal, who brings up feeds, who sleeps badly, belongs first to the paediatrician. An osteopathy consultation must never delay medical assessment, and that is especially true at this age.

What I can support is positional discomfort and restricted movement. That is a narrow scope, and it is the only one I claim.

With children and teenagers

Growth, back and school bag

Growth brings its own reasons to come. A back that pulls during growth spurts, discomfort from carrying a school bag or from hours in front of a screen, the aftermath of falls and sprains that nobody followed up.

A growth spurt temporarily unsettles what was in place. Bones lengthen faster than muscles and tendons can follow, and the cost lands on the attachment points, at the knee and the heel above all. It is ordinary, it passes, and it can be eased.

The school bag deserves a word. It is not so much its weight as how it is carried: on one shoulder, for months, always the same side. Back pain in a child often starts with that question.

The restless child who sleeps badly

“He never sits still.” “She takes two hours to fall asleep.” “He wakes every night.” Those are the parents’ words, and they describe a situation that exhausts the whole household.

Let me say straight away what I do not do. I make no diagnosis, I give no opinion on an attention disorder or anything of that order, and I replace neither the paediatrician nor the professionals who assess these situations. A child whose restlessness worries their parents over time should be seen by them, and that comes before me.

What I can work on is more modest and entirely real. A body that does not come down in the evening, breathing held high, a stiff neck and base of the skull, an uncomfortable stomach. These things keep the restlessness going and get in the way of falling asleep, and they can be worked on.

Sessions with children are short.

What I tell parents comes down to one sentence: if nothing changes in two or three sessions, it is not mine to handle, and I will say so rather than carry on.

The young club athlete

The same principles apply as for adult athletes, with particular attention to growth areas, which are more fragile.

The difference is one of timing. A teenager training in a club stacks up sessions during the period when the skeleton is changing fastest, and attachment pain at the knee or the heel almost always turns up then. It calls for medical advice first, because you need to know whether the bone is involved before touching anything.

What I look at next: the footings, the mobility of hips and ankles, and how the sporting movement repeats. What I often say to parents: pain that comes back at every session is not a lack of willpower.

The scope

Your child’s care belongs to their doctor or paediatrician. I stand in for neither, I question no treatment, and I refer you back to them as soon as what I find falls outside my scope.