There is nothing more
distressing to a new Mum than to hear the constant cries of her child in
distress especially after feeding, changing, burping and pacifying has failed
to change the child’s state of expression that something is wrong.
A baby cries differently just
as we adjust our tone of voice and posture to get our message across. The cry of feed me or change me has less
postulation than if they are really distressed.
If this was for a feed or to be changed it all resolves quite
quickly. Infants may stop to see if thode sounds of sweet melody have been heard.
They may get themselves stressed because nothing has happened and their
crying increases with some help from the limbs they continue to try and get
your attention. These gestures are not
over animated but can be affective in showing their displeasure at having to
wait.
Your senses all play a part
of the quest to search the cries and determine what the cause might be. Smell, touch and sight are what follows’ the
earache you may now have. Not to mention
the headache or feeling as distressed as they are because you haven’t soothed
away their discomfort. Frantic now and
sending the baby your stress at their stressing you stresses them. The fact remains that even a new mum has
maternal and instinctive feelings that propel them into action and eliminate
one by one possible causes even if they have to telephone their Mother or
indeed the Mother in Law for advice.
You have done all the right
things and followed all the advice you’d been given or read about but the baby
keeps crying. So now you need another
surge of maternalpompandceremony. Don’t
worry you have it covered. In the blue
print you see. You are now holding the
baby again and soothingly trying to pacify it by talking calmly and softly
maybe even singing to them before holding them up to your shoulder and there is
an almighty volcanic eruption of wind from both ends and the baby stops crying
slowly sobbing until it feels secure and safe again after the excruciating pain
it could not fathom or resolve by crying and wriggling about in the cot. Baby now sleeps a little exhausted and past
time for next feed, but all is well.
What if the baby doesn’t
break wind and continues in the distressed state, pulling its legs up and
bringing in the Mexican wave to drum it home that something is seriously up
and ‘I don’t just want attention or a
cuddle or to feel the security of my mother’s arms.’ What then…?
A new born infant attunes to sounds over their first few
weeks hones and it homes in on mum’s voice in some cases dads too. It also starts to communicate with coos and
goo’s and grunts and groans. And even
being soothed and feeling safe by mum’s constant chatter. Stirring or jumping at sudden noises such as
banging doors and screaming offspring or loud bursts of sound. They can adjust to sounds quickly and soon
settle into that longed for routine. Before they cry they may spend some time
with searching eyes for quite some time before crying for that needed attention
to feed and change them.
The uttering little coos and goo’s might not have brought
mum to them because she is preparing feed or content baby is happy and
investigating but not seeing mums face will eventually register with the little
one and the crying will begin. Hungry
and needing changed the vocalisation begins.
It can be a mix of soft bouts of crying and waiting to see if mum shows
and repeating until she does and the longer it might be may determine the
intensity of increase from those hearty little lungs.
Distressed Children
There is a few seconds lull as baby thinks you’ve got the
message. That you have recovered them and sound sympathetic and soothing. Sometimes at this point you may also experience the above after picking the child up. If that is the case then all is well and baby
will go off to sleep again. If first
child this can be quite common for a few weeks to a few months. There is nothing like your first child nor
that knowing and efficiently acting on experience and knowledge with your
subsequent offspring. If there was
another way of helping your child to get rid of Colic giving you more peace
than earache? Why would it not be
divulged to all new mums? All too often
now Calpol and other baby sleep products are given for a quiet life and the
constant sedated state is not a good one for the inquisitive infant on an
adventure of a life time.
Two very important words should be introduced at all anti
natal classes and for mums to be, mums delivered and birth to seven years at
least. These two words are BOWEN and
Cranial Sacral. Don’t quibble about
3. You know what I mean. This was brought home to me recently when
treating the parents of a 15 week bundle of joy. The dad mentioned it first and then later in
the afternoon the mum was in for her treatment and we had a chat. I suggested she try Bowen and if the baby was
awake I’d do it then as her husband was calling back to pick her up. With the lightest of touch I did the upper
stoppers and end of respiratory. I saw
the family off and with that “Didn’t seem to do much so what’s that going to
achieve?” look upon their faces. The
following week they were both back in for treatments and I had suggested Bowen
for them too. The baby was reported not
to have suffered with any more colic and had been sleeping better as well.
Her mum did inform me though that the evening of the Bowen
for baby resulted in a lot of burping from both ends and a rather messy present
when changing her. And she was puzzled
as to the effectiveness of such gentle moves.
Always and ever ready to demonstrate Bowen in action I had already
executed the moves of demonstration shoulder procedure on the dad and now I
took the opportunity to help a more than ten year problem with the mums left inner
scapulae and shoulder due to working at that time in a call centre. I also used the time to demonstrate the
difference in pressure used for her and that on the Baby. She admitted to being puzzled at the gentle
over in a flash moves made on the baby and the results it had. The couple had been struggling for two weeks
with trying to pacify the baby and followed all the so called ways tried and
tested.
“Do you have a leaflet on the Bowen?” she asked and I
provided one suggesting she looked on the website too as there would be more
information on how it has been used effectively for Babies to the elderly
safely and remarkably with little publicity from those now qualified Doctors
who know that exploring other ways of healing are important to those
practitioners devoted to aiding better health and wellbeing. Baby Bowen was a worthwhile course I was
privileged to do following my qualifying as practitioner. They are truly wonderful perfect creatures
are our infants and what a great start with their lives when harmonised in
perfect balance and realignment if after a difficult birth or in any distress
after birth.
I must point out here that there may very well
be other distress signs in how your baby or child cries, or vomits. Pyloric stenosis is a fairly uncommon
condition affecting the opening (pylorus) between the stomach and small
intestine in infants. It may run in family line skipping a generation and
affects mainly sons, although daughters can suffer with it too. The pylorus is a muscular valve that holds
food in the stomach until it is ready for the next stage in the digestive
process. In pyloric stenosis, the
pylorus muscles thicken, blocking food from entering the baby's small
intestine. Pyloric stenosis can lead to forceful vomiting, dehydration and
weight loss. Babies with this condition may seem to always be hungry. In my case I was the only one of eight
children to have experienced this but two of my grandsons and one of my
grand-daughters also suffered from the same symptoms and needed an operation to correct
it.
Pyloric stenosis
There is also another problem that should be
ruled out with young children and that is a hernia. The inguinal Hernia is more common in infants
and accounts for 80% of the indirect type associated with such complaints. The Direct type is more common with the
elderly and rare in children. A young
child can be in a great deal of discomfort and pain, being told there is
nothing wrong with your child or that you are a neurotic mother is no way to
handle such symptoms of distress when all avenues and examinations have been
carried out.
I had the unfortunate experience but rather
fortunate as it turned out to know a lady who was having problems with her
young son. She had been going to her
Doctors and the hospital for two years.
They continually told her they could find nothing wrong. The boy was
about six months when I first knew them but I didn’t see her as often as my
wife did being friends with her. There
were a few occasions where this distraught mother was about to devour something
stronger than calpol herself but also still dozing her child as per instructions
because they had found nothing wrong.
The child was examined many times but no diagnosis was given. We were expecting our first child and were
asked to babysit. Our friend found it
difficult to get out and to have regular baby sitters because of the constant
crying. Mind you there had been clues
when getting changed but as my wife changed his nappy the real McCoy here not
the throw away brigade. I noticed a
swelling on his right lower abdomen and it was large. I cringed in a pain of sympathy and started
telling my wife that our friend would have to take him to the hospital and get
them to deal with this. I believe the
swelling can come and go and can ease after repositioning baby once fed and
changed. But this would have been hard
to miss if seen by GP or Hospital Doctor.
I calmly suggested to or friend to take him and
demand they deal with this now for it had been going on for so long. Our now tearful friend was in remorse for not
knowing but how could she the Doctors didn’t even know. She admitted the swelling had come and gone
at times and she had explained but the swelling was not prominent when seen and
quite a few times it was brushed off as baby asleep and best not to disturb him
too much. Here is probably a good reason
not to use calpol. If baby sedated and
relaxed possibly no discomfort will be felt but when getting changed or
depending on how he was held when feeding or comforting him the pains and
discomfort returned and so did his screams.
And boy was his lungs in good shape.
She calmed down and composed herself and I
suggested she did not let them tell her to give more calpol or that there was
no cause for concern. She did and he grew up after a small operation without
the discomfort and pain he’d experienced for nearly three years. This was in 1970/71 I would suspect it would
not happen now because there is a lot of information that can often rule out
worry and concern but beware for it may add to them too. Always go to your GP Don’t be afraid about
their labelling you as neurotic – and if you don’t get treatment or referral
for diagnoses. Change your GP or go to the hospital direct. You have the right to complain to the medical
council too. No Doctor should be
labelling Mothers or Fathers as neurotic.
They are just concerned parents and if first child even more so because
the experience is new and the learning process is masterly in action with the
best possible teacher: the young infant.
You will know your child and have a bond that
unites a form of communication and understanding maternally or paternally for
dads can be included. If your child is
screaming and wriggling in pain evaluate and make your decision. Make good use of your midwife and district
nurse at the surgery. Ask your GP and if
you suspect anything ask if it might be that or what he thinks it might
be. Get a diagnosis as soon as
possible. You will know the difference
between your Childs cry for food, comfort and changing or interaction and when
they are suffering for the screams are more intense and nothing sooths or
comfort them.
My mother diagnosed for our Doctor my pyloric
stenosis after he continued to say he was at a loss over weeks of my vomiting
and weight loss. He returned to the
surgery had a read up on it and called my mum to say an ambulance was on way
for her and myself to go to hospital right away. She had been a nurse before
getting married. Doctors may not come
across every ailment but they should always give the parents more than a label
of being neurotic.
This was all so many years before my discovery
of Bowen and the knowing about the constant stream of wellbeing existence. That’s another story and back then the
influences of my mother’s nursing career influenced my thoughts on being a
Doctor but over medicating, suicide and my grandfather’s death changed the search
for a different way to ease and change pain and suffering. However, it wasn’t until forty years later
that I found Bowen. So the moral of the
story is: Don’t be a chocoholic but
enjoy the chocolate. Don’t be a
workaholic but enjoy what you do and don’t suffer with Colic…! In all cases Bowen it…!
Bowen will work with the individual blue print
that is uniquely you. No matter
what! You will benefit as your body
permits. Improvements will be realised
but expectations may just as over enthusiastic therapists express their faith
in Bowen, doubt and fear or lack of understanding of this little gem can fuel
the ‘How is that gentle snail pace move going to shift the problem I have in my
shoulder, or hip or back…?’ Simples…
Bowen is the Gentle Giant of Therapies and while some people prefer massage,
reflexology or acupuncture this little giant will take you there and allow you
to then decide how you want to maintain your good health and improved
posture. You can have occasional top ups
or go back to modality of preference. No
matter what you choose to use as maintenance your Bowen will have instigated
changes that you may not realise right away and not connect with a few months
down the road when you have changed your job, moved house made that big decision
you were putting off until sure of commitment.
You can even have help to conceive, possibly saving a fortune for some
and after giving birth or to help baby after a stressful birth or illness early
on and if nothing else for the first seven years of their precious little
lives.
Mums - Dads – Babies - Toddlers – Even the
terrible two three and fours can all benefit – Preteens – Teenagers with
repetitive elder terrible twos and threes having tantrums, strops or lacking
enthusiasm for life in either work rest or play – Studying for exams – getting
back into work – finding a job and lacking confidence and incentives, feeling
lethargic and disempowered – Even grandparents can benefit - In fact there are
scores of other reasons but maybe you should ask how it will help you? There may be other modalities that you could
be recommended to use along with your sessions.
Like palates is often complementary to your Bowen work. You may need some counselling or another form
of therapy that can be recommended to help with aspects that never need to be
discussed with your Bowen practitioner.
If by any other name would it have spread or been accepted more? No named after Tom Bowen and trusting the
process is all you need. You make the
moves and the rest leaves with their shoes.
