Pregnancy and Conception
During pregnancy, Craniosacral Therapy can help you with related physical or emotional problems. It soothes back pain, nausea, headache, and edema, and supports you to deal with your concerns or anxiety around pregnancy and birth. The deep relaxation you can reach during the session not only helps you to cope easier with challenges in your pregnant everyday life, but also provides you with a body sensation you will be able to reconnect with during labor and birth.
By strengthening the bonding between you and your unborn baby, and enjoying some quiet time with the child in your womb, Craniosacral Therapy can help you to prepare for the birth experience you wish for. It can align your pelvis, and in contact with you and your unborn baby it supports your child to find an optimal position for birth. This can be remarkably advantageous if your baby is in breech position.
I can also support you in integrating a previous birth experience. This is especially helpful if you prepare yourself for a VBAC – a vaginal birth after cesarean section. Craniosacral Therapy can not only facilitate the healing of your belly scar, but can also support you to heal the scar in your soul.
Finding a place of integration and acceptance for what happened is the best way, to not let old unpleasant memories and anxiety interfere with your next birth. Instead, you can start fresh again, trusting in your body’s ability to give birth. Being in tune with your body will also allow you to notice potential difficulties in time to act accordingly.
When you are on your journey to prepare yourself for pregnancy, Craniosacral Therapy can balance your hormonal system, making it easier to conceive. The visceral part of the craniosacral work, which feels like a special massage for your belly, will provide enough space and flexibility for your uterus, preparing it for bearing a child. Releasing stress from your system is also a very valuable preparation for inviting a child to you.
In addition, I can support you to heal from a miscarriage or another loss, so that you will be able to enjoy a new pregnancy and to welcome your next baby from the beginning.
If you are interested, I can also offer you childbirth education.
Labor and Birth
During labor, Craniosacral Therapy can provide a measure of comfort.
I also strengthen your contact with the baby who is about to be born. As a mom in labor, your awareness will be mainly on your body to tune in to the process of opening and giving birth. Your partner will support you during this process. While the midwife is taking care of your and the baby’s wellbeing during labor and birth, supporting this physiologic process with all her experience, it might be beneficial to have someone else on your birth team, whose main focus is the baby. The midwife Sunni Karll created the term “Baby Doula” for this. As your baby doula, I will hold a space for keeping the connection with your baby, and will remind the baby that he or she is loved by you and warmly welcome.
Connection is the major key for a wonderful birth. It is important to feel connected with your baby, your body, your husband or birth partner, and your support team. To develop all these connections long before birth is an essential part of your preparation, and Craniosacral Therapy can support you in this. Prenatal sessions give you the opportunity to form a trusting relationship with me. In addition, the craniosacral work improves your body awareness and deepens your contact with the baby inside you. Sensing my familiar presence, or receiving the same gentle touch from me during labor, helps you to drop into the body memory of feeling connected.
If a challenge comes up, it is important to keep the baby informed as well. This is also something I can do for you as your baby doula. Afterwards I can support the bonding between you as the parents and your newborn child, and I can assist your baby in the transition of arriving in this new world.
Postpartum
In the early weeks, but also later in life, I can support you and your baby in integrating what you experienced during birth.
Craniosacral Therapy can assist your baby to adapt to life outside the womb. This gentle work can support babies to eat and sleep better, to be more content while awake, it can resolve misalignment of the spine or head, and it even opens many therapy options for children with severe medical conditions, such as heart failure or disabilities.
During birth, the bones of the baby’s head are usually overlapping, making the circumference of the head smaller, which allows for an easier passage through the pelvis. After birth, breastfeeding in particular will support the baby in its work to bring the skull bones back into the right place. Craniosacral Therapy can support your baby in this process.
This gentle craniosacral treatment can be especially helpful for babies who were born by vacuum extraction or forceps. It releases the restrictions in the baby’s head and membranes, caused by vacuum and forceps, and it supports a healthy brain growth and development for the children, supporting them to live their potential to the fullest.
Babies born by c-section have to master the transition of birth, which is meant to take a few hours, in just a few minutes. This is why especially these babies benefit from Craniosacral Therapy. It not only supports them in their adaptation process and can release some of the common symptoms, linked to this form of birth, but it also provides the opportunity to experience aspects that these children missed during the actual birth.
Physical symptoms I often see in babies born by c-section are: a blocked atlanto-occipital joint, which means too little space between head and neck, and an inversed arch of the thoracic spine, both having many adverse impacts on sleep and digestion.
Craniosacral Therapy further supports premature babies to find their own rhythm in catching up with normal development. It also helps children to recover faster after surgery.
And Craniosacral Therapy can balance your system as the mother to facilitate the transition from being pregnant and giving birth to being a mom and having your body back to yourself. It further alleviates some of the common postpartum problems, such as mastitis.
Please contact me if you have any questions or want to schedule an appointment. I am looking forward to hearing from you.
