What is Osteopathy?

Osteopathy is a form of natural medicine that uses a number of manual techniques to identify stress, strain and dysfunction within the human body. Osteopathy aims to re-establish the inherent healing power that the body possesses through gentle manipulation and movement of the joints, muscles, tendons and ligaments.

Through improvement in the physical structure of the body, improvements in function are also made, affecting all the systems of the body from nerve conduction, respiration, digestion and general levels of vitality.

Cranial Osteopathy

Developed in the early 1900s in America, cranial osteopathy is a specialised form of diagnosis and treatment using very gentle yet powerful techniques working on stress and tension held deep within the body.

The cranial osteopath uses a highly refined sense of touch to identify areas of stress, torsion and restriction within the tissues and gentle pressure to correct these disturbances. Cranial osteopaths are trained to feel a very subtle, rhythmical shape change that is present in all tissues of the body.

Throughout our lives our bodies are exposed to trauma in many guises whether it is physical knocks, stress or emotional. These leave lasting imprint on the body, which whilst we are healthy, we are able to manage or compensate for. However if our ability to mange or compensate is overcome then symptoms emerge and discomfort, pain or dysfunction ensue. Osteopaths not only treat the current problem they also look to unravel the underlying causes that may have been present for many years and it is this that makes cranial osteopathic treatment so effective.

Treatment of children and babies

Cranial osteopathy is effective in the treatment of many conditions but has become increasingly associated with the treatment of infants and children whose delicate systems respond rapidly to this very gentle non-invasive therapy.

Birth is a necessarily stressful event at the beginning of life on the outside; it prepares the baby for a whole new environment and leads to a surge in activity in all the bodily systems. Most babies are able to absorb the stress of birth, some however can be deeply affected by it especially when labour has been long and complicated or interventions such as the use of forceps or ventouse have been used. This retained stress or tension can exhibit in number of ways such as irritable difficult to settle babies, feeding difficulties, poor sleep patterns and problems with digestion, wind or "colic".

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