What is Craniosacral therapy useful for?

In general Craniosacral Therapy (CST) can improve our body's ability to take better care of us.

Like many alternative approaches CST can be useful as a preventative therapy to help keep us in optimal  health.

Practitioners and clients find that it also helps relieve pain and dysfunction from may sources, often uncovering and addressing the deeper causes of our symptoms. The types of problems we find people seek treatment for are very varied but may include stress and tension related disorders, musculoskeletal pain, migraines and headaches, brain and spinal cord injuries as well as many other acute and chronic conditions. People often think of CST as a treatment for babies and indeed parents often report that many typical newborn's problems improve and that they are more settled after treatment.

Since CST is not prescriptive in its approach, we will always work by listening to and following what it feels your body tissues need to do, whatever the condition you may be experiencing.

CST is not a replacement for appropriate medical care and if there are any concerns we recommend consulting your doctor.

That wriggly child.

Why are some children unable to sit still?

They wriggle in their chair; sit on one leg; then lean forward off their bottoms onto the table. Anything but sitting still in a chair.

This could be partly due to some primitive reflexes that have not been integrated into the nervous system.

When a baby is in the womb and in the early months of life it had certain primitive reflexes that it uses to protect itself. These reflexes then become integrated as the nervous system develops in a specific sequence.

For instance the Spinal Galant Reflex.

You can see this at work if you stoke the lower back of a baby on one side of the spine. The reflex is to twist away from that side and raise the hip. Stimulation down both sides of the spine at the lower back activates a related reflex that elicits urination.

The Spinal Galant Reflex is normally integrated between 3-9 months.

However if is not integrated by then it can be stimulated at any time.

Light pressure from a child's belt or waistline or from leaning against the back of a chair may activate the reflex causing the child to wriggle and constantly change body position. The constant irritation affects concentration and short term memory.

In addition the bladder voiding reflex may lead to poor bladder control and prolonged bedwetting as the   bedsheets stimulate the reflex.

Upledger Craniosacral therapy has techniques that may help balance the body and reduce the effect of the reflex.