What is Craniosacral Fascial Therapy and How Will it Help My Baby?
Craniosacral Fascial Therapy, or, CFT, is a type of gentle bodywork that addresses the nervous system as well as fascial system.
We know the whole body works together, so let’s break down each part needed for this therapy.
For reference, let’s start with Classic Craniosacral Therapy. CCT aims to relieve any type of tension that is restricting the flow of the cerebrospinal fluid by using the skull bones and sacral bones as handles. The skull and sacral bones are connected to the membranes within this system, so mobilizing these specific bones in a very precise manner will adjust the membranes and thus alleviate any tension that may be blocking the fluid from flowing freely.
The central nervous system is made of your brain and spinal cord. There are membranes that surround the brain and spinal cord. Inside these membranes is a fluid called cerebrospinal fluid. CFT takes into consideration the flow of this fluid (much like classic craniosacral therapy) The goal is to get this fluid moving freely as well as addressing whole-body fascial strain.
Fascia is a type of tissue in your body that connects different structures and provides stability and mobility of the bones, muscles, ligaments, tendons, fat, and organs. If the fascia is not moving as it should, systemic dysfunction, as well as mobility limitations, can occur. Oftentimes in infants, this will be described as overly fussy, sensitive, “colicky,” reflux babies who appear tight and struggle to feed.
Fascial strain in babies can take place in utero (hello…not too much room in there during the last few weeks!), during the birthing process, or, shortly after birth with the use of car seats and baby containers. (If you want to read about baby containers, take a look at my blog post HERE.)
The strain in the fascial web is apparent in almost all newborns. Then it comes down to whether or not that baby is able to self-mobilize, or “melt” the restricted fascia. It is specifically helpful to troubleshoot the fascial strain for babies who present with feeding difficulties, torticollis, and plagiocephaly (flattened head shape).
Both babies and adults can benefit from CFT with a trained provider to release the fascial strains and restore the most optimal flow of cerebrospinal fluid. I myself have benefited greatly from CFT work as an adult, and I see babies daily in my practice who benefit greatly from this work.
CFT works well in conjunction with physical therapy for infants. Start with releasing the physical tension or strain, and then follow up with positional play to encourage the baby to strengthen and retrain their posture and movement in a more efficient manner.
In the physical therapy world, we like to use the phrase “gain the range, then train the range.” In my practice I use CFT daily to “gain the range” meaning improve passive mobility of the fascia throughout the entire body (including the mouth!). I then “train the range” with use of positional play activities.
If you have any questions about how I use CFT in my practice, please message me HERE.
