It has been said by many cultures since ancient times that kids are closest to "Heaven." We can well understand this in our culture too.

There is now a rapidly growing field called CranioSacral for Pediatrics. "Pediatrics" is the branch medicine that works with infants and children.

When working with Infants and Children, the Mother or Father or both are warmly welcomed in the Treatment Room during the Session while the child is receiving.

This Facilitator has seen CranioSacral treat and relieve

• Multiple Seizure Disorders
• Strabismus or "lazy eye" (72% percent)
• Birth Trauma, can include Caesarian Section (below)
• Spastic Cerebral Palsy (65% percent)
• Colic
• And more!

Parents and The Pediatrics Session

At times, the parents will sit and with wonder observe as the child allows to gently unwind and relax. At other times either of the parents may entertain the child while the work goes on, or actually lie down on the treatment table with the child. The infant or child can often be a moving target! The parents are a calming influence.

At these times it's not unusual to work on both parent and child. This is an experience that is both deeply meaningful and peaceful for all involved. There is a quality of peace and sacredness that only an infant or child can impart to us "adults." There is a feeling in the room that all silently and peacefully recognize.

Maybe this is what it means that kids are close to heaven, whatever "heaven" might look like.

CranioSacral for Pregnant Mothers

It can also be nourishing for pregnant mothers and provide nutrient to the developing child.

It has a unique ability to release and open the pelvis and sacrum and loosen the tough connective tissue around the lower abdomen.

Because of this it can support delivery itself and can lessen the time of delivery.

It can also provide a safer delivery.

This Facilitator may be freely giving away research here, but more and more, this Facilitator has observed a kind of "disconnect" at the deep core between both the mother and the foetus in utero.  As astonishing as this may seem, after a few sessions of very gentle and non-intrusive treatment, both the mother and the little one can soon "reconnect" with each other at the core and even develop a kind of mutual understanding... 

This way, the mother and the little one can go into the birth process together, as as a Team.  And also with a deeply felt honesty.  This can also contribute to a safer delivery and greater feeling of ease for the whole staff.

(Ever given a "hello" to your little one? :)

There are CranioSacral Therapists available to some hospitals to assist the staff and gently and considerately stabilize the Neonate body soon after the delivery and bonding process.

Prepare Yourself.

(What follows is kind of heavy…)

The other day I was in a deeply restful town outside of Los Angeles called, Ojai. Ojai is a small community and beautiful and known for it's fine secondary schools and for the very creative people who have lived there, including Beatrice Wood, Anne Besant and J. Krishnamurti. I was considering apartments there and happened to glance at a featured headline in a small local paper.

The following Letter to the Editor is from the Ojai and Ventura Voice, Friday, May 12, 2000, with headline entitled:

"Mind Altering Drugs used on Toddlers and it's Legal!"

I have here included the text in full for your contemplation...

Letter To The Editor

"DRUGGING OF TODDLERS"

"I wrote a letter to the editor of the Ventura Star and LA Times. Neither have printed it in over three weeks. I would like my letter to be printed and was hoping you would give me some space in your paper...even if only one person gets my writing. Thank you.

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) announces that the number of preschoolers ages two to four, being prescribed anti-depressants like Prozac and Ritalin has doubled and the reaction from the White House is that more research funds are needed to test these drugs on toddlers in an effort to determine drug safety and efficacy. It is already known that these drugs cause major adverse reactions in adults - nerve damage, brain damage, liver damage, and sometimes suicidal actions and psychotic rages. How can they even THINK about testing these drugs on toddlers?

Instead of decrying the drugging of children with mind-altering addictive drugs, the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) is funding $6 million over the next five years for hundreds of children under 6 years of age to be experimented upon using Ritalin, "behavior therapy" or a combination of both.

This is in addition to the $2.11 million NIMH has already spent between 1990 and 1996 alone on grants for studying the use of psychiatric drugs on children. Consider that in 1996 $402,583 was given to a New York State Psychiatric Institute researcher for a post-mortem study of 400 "unexplained deaths" among children and adolescents (ages seven through 19) to determine the relationship between sudden death in children and adolescents and the use of certain anti-depressants. How many more children will die or be permanently damaged in these studies?

Looking five years down the road, I do not see NIMH, the FDA, or the APA(American Psychiatric Association) coming out and saying these drugs are harmful (even though evidence already exists that they are). I do not see them contacting all of the families and victims of this drug experiment to inform them of their gruesome findings.

Instead all I see is that more money will be wasted, more young minds will be wasted, and all the while the drug companies will be raking in the profits.

Already the number of children on Ritalin has skyrocketed from one million in 1990 to four million today. That's not because the stigma of mental illness, ADD, and ADHD has been lifted, and isn't because there is now more awareness of "help" for mental illness. Look a little closer and you will see who is pushing to lift the "stigma" and promote "awareness" and you will find the big drug companies who are now being enabled by our federal government to conduct experiments using mind-altering drugs on toddlers."

Tammy Synovec
Ventura, California

I know nothing of these studies beyond this impassioned article, and have no doubt that each acted professionally and in accordance with the dictates of their code and conscience. But as I read the article, and knowing what I know now, and with deepest regard to any parent and family who might have experienced such tragic loss of life, I could not help but wonder if a significant number of the children could have been somewhat assisted and comforted with gentle Bodywork Therapies. The thing is, very few as yet know what is available out there.

Elsewhere on CraniOcean.Calm, we talk about medical errors and refer to the now classic study by the Institute of Medicine, To Err Is Human.

Unfortunately, nowadays it seems like a kid can just be busy being a kid and get a diagnoses. I don't think I'm the only practitioner who's heard this complaint from concerned parents.

When I do hear this complaint, I often recall the words of the great psychiatrist:

"Life itself is a disease
with a very poor prognoses.
It lingers on and on,
and invariably ends in death…!"

- Carl Jung

Sensory Integration

More and more practitioners of CranioSacral are being welcomed into Pediatrics and Sensory Integration Departments across the country. Occupational Therapists(OT) are incorporating this light touch form of bodywork as their first modality of choice. Lynne Ganz, OTR/C, who recently accepted into the teacher certification training for Upledger Institute's CranioSacral Therapy for Pediatrics, states in a recent U.I. newsletter that, "I've been practicing twenty five years. Almost 90 percent of my caseload is pediatrics, and nearly all the kids I see come in with sensory integration problems."

She also notes in the article what any CranioSacral Therapist discovers: "No matter what the presenting symptoms are, when you peel back the layers you almost always find a foundation of cranial problems."

Often, the infants bring their grown ups into my studio office for treatment! I don't know "how" this happens but it does. And it's not at all unusual for me or other CranioSacral practitioners to work with both the mother and the infant or young child or pre-teen on the table and at the same time! These are deeply meaningful and gentle sessions for all involved.

CranioSacral for Caesarian Section ("C-Section")

This is kind of heavy too.

This may be quite unpopular to annouce, and again, this Facilitator does not claim to be a physician or MD, but more and more this Facilitator encounters grown men and women suffering from needless weight of depression due to the effects of...Cesarian Delivery. 

It is a wandering or "endogenous" form of depression and most often treated with ample mood medications in toddlers and adolescents, but might this only "mask" a deeper cause? 

It isn't that strange or hard to understand.  Imagine a deep sea diver coming up from the depths of the ocean very rapidly and imagine the sudden changes in air pressure.  This is called the "bends" and it has its potential hazards in diving.  

Well, the same could be said of a Caesarian Delivery ("C-Section").  Think about it, and also consider the common sense lessons already learned on this site. 

With the "C-Section", the foetus very rapidly comes up from a highly and delicately balanced pressurized internal environment to experience what?  a very rapid decompression of the bones of the skull and of the internal organs.

This Facilitator has found the effects of this to last long into adulthood.

It has been long observed in complimentary medical circles that when the foetus has a natural, vaginal delivery, that he or she is also receiving a first massage therapy session, first chiropractic treatment, first osteopathic treatment, first craniosacral therapy session with all those twists and turns!  He or she is also working against pressures which help to form its head and tail, gradually. It's much like the way a small plant first needs to push against the earth, gradually, before exposure to the sun and elements.  This is a wonder of Mother Nature.

Everything in this organic world grows.

We all know there are some few cases where Caesarian Section ("C-Section") is absolutely necessary, and we are all for that, and deeply grateful for the highly skilled doctors that can perform it on dire need.  Unlike in our parents days, C-Sections are often freely given to help prevent the mother from experiencing pain and discomfort of a natural vaginal delivery.

We are always most grateful when an astute parent brings in their little one for treatment after a Caesarian Delivery.  It can also be treated when the infant has already grown well into the toddler stage or beyond.  We are most grateful for this.

We also find that the mother often requires some treatment also, if only to very gently, non-intrusively, and naturally free and release the scar tissue made at the lower abdomen from the surgical incision made.

Medical Errors

As food for thought, in the now classic study made by the Institute of Medicine, To Err Is Human, medical errors are estimated to cause between 44,000 and 98,000 deaths every year in the United States.  If we use only the more conservative figure here, medical errors rank as the eighth leading cause of death in the USA -- higher than motor vehicle accidents, AIDS, and breast cancers.

Wait! There's more!

In a Harvard Medical Practices study (Leape, 1997), it was found that 58 percent of injuries and deaths due to drug complications were preventable, and that 27.6 percent of these complications were due to negligence. 

Of course, in my role as a massage therapist, and in my role as a complementary medical practitioner, I neither encourage the use of prescription drugs nor discourage their use.  Although I'm not a physcian, I might suggest, from time to time, that the patient and/ or client sit down and evaluate a prescription, write it all down, and ask their doctor to describe it back to them in easy-to-understand language. 

Some harmless questions they might prepare for their doctor as "homework" and physically write down, or if hand-writing is too difficult, voice-record with an audio recorder, might possibly be:

1) What is the Purpose of this particular drug?

2) What are the side effects now experienced?

3) Do the benefits outweigh the side effects?

4) Does my doctor know the names of all my other drugs prescribed?

I will often offer this small homework assignment informally for those clients who have been taking a drug, in cases for months, and volunteer and admit they don't know why they are taking it! 

Naturally, this exercise is quite handy when caring for children!

If we consider the Harvard studies on negligence, and that in 2007, the pharmaceutical industry gained higher profits that the natural gas and oil industries, Worldwide, this exercise of common sense might not be such a surprise.

"Genius At Work"

If I may, Upledger cites a case with an elderly man who was a Supreme Court Justice of Canada and who was on a large number of prescription medications for osteoarthritis -- a loss of cartilage in the knees.  Upledger invited the man to physically bring in all the bottles of Meds to the next craniosacral therapy appointment.  Then, in the quiet of the session, Upledger checked in with his patient's craniosacral rhythm to find out which medications were now appropriate for the fellow to take. Out of more than 20 medications prescribed, the craniosacral system responded that only 3 were good for the patient!  This feisty Supreme Court Justice continued to take only these three medications, while continuing to go to craniosacral sessions.  Soon the patient's Adult stem cells were enlisted (this too is possible folks! -- JN) in the rebuilding of the cartilage.  (Beyond the Dura, 2008)*

What is an Error?

The Institute of Medicine defines an error as the failure of a planned action to be completed as intended, or the use of a wrong plan to acheive an aim.

At the same time, it's useful to keep in mind that not all bad outcomes for patients and/or clients are due to medical errors. What might be interpreted as a bad outcome might only be our healing at work and in process. Sometimes it really, really can be, as the old Homeopaths remind us all, "worse before better."

There are far more good-doctor stories out there than there are bad-doctor stories. Thankfully, sites such as CraniOcean.Calm, and related books, begin to inform and empower each of us to ask questions for our health and well being and of our loved ones.

As a suggestion, here is a useful question to ask ourselves, quietly, any condition or outcome: 

    What am I doing?

We might also take the time to ask if gentle, hands-on therapies such as massage and craniosacral are really that scary?  What would be lost but a few, relaxing hours on a massage table?

Thanks for Listenin'

I grew up with six sisters and have an extended family of nieces and nephews of twenty four bright-hearted souls, and my Mom would always say to us, "Thanks for Listenin'".

This has been a heavy page to read but hopefully of some interest.

Meanwhile...

We've all heard that kids are closest to Heaven. Why not treat them this way?

Come to think of it, why not ourselves?

Could put a whole new spin on the old phrase, "Suffer the little children"? Could the word "suffer" mean simply to take the time with them?

(Think about it for a while.)

*Adult stem cells, Embryonic stem cells, for in reality, what's the difference?  They are all precursor cells and behave the same way.  Let's get real, OK? - JN