How my Chiro stopped Ayla crying!
It turns out that Ayla is a completely different child to Erin. **surprise**
In her first couple of weeks she cried so much that Steven and I were at our wits ends. I could tell the crying was not discontentment...it was pain, or discomfort, something was not quite right and I was desperate to help my little angel. I remembered hearing about Chiropractors helping others and decided to call up Dr Maryellen Stephens, who has an amazing reputation. Chiropractors and cranial osteopaths often work on new babies just to get everything realligned that's been disturbed perhaps in the womb or during the birthing process.
Dr Maryellen was so welcoming and friendly and was wonderful with Ayla. She explained everything in detail and I'm hoping I'm recounting it correctly...
She pointed out that Ayla's head was quite uneven.. the dent in the one side of her head was bigger than the other. Perhaps from how she was lying in the womb, perhaps against my ribs or hip or something. How I understand it is that this restricted movement in her skull which is still quite flexible and the crying and lots of sucking is natures way of increasing pressure to try and get everything to move into it's correct place.
She also screamed whenever we got her dressed and couldn't lift one of her arms all the way up (which I also hadn't noticed until she pointed it out). The chiro said that her sacrum(which is not fused at this age) was not quite doing what it was supposed to and between this and her head her spine was tethered, limiting her movement and affecting digestion, latching onto the breast, etc etc.
I had just presumed she probably had colic and I was going to have to live with a few hours of really distressing crying everyday until she grew out of it, but am so glad I gave the chiro a go. She did a bit of very gentle work on her sacrum which immediately released her arm and leg so they could move as they were supposed to (no more crying when getting dressed!!!) and her head is almost even on both sides now.
From the first treatment Ayla's crying reduced from an hour or two a day to an hour or two once a week or every two weeks. Ayla is a completely different baby now...happy and content and only cries when she's tired or hungry and her nappy is full. We haven't had a crying session like we had before in about a month. She also feeds much better and is less gassy (her head would have affected her jaw and therefore her latch on my boob, etc).
So I am a totally blown away and a 100% convert to something I was originally slightly skeptical of. I really want any parent who is desperate with a crying or colicky baby to at least know that Chiropractic is an option. No one really knows what colic is, and apparently chiropractic work nearly always at least reduces the crying.
I feel I owe our sanity to Dr Maryellen Stephens of Westcountry Family Chiropractic! http://www.family-chiro.co.uk/
Dr Maryellen Stephens is also available to answer questions on the Nature's Mother forum, under "Ask the Chiropractor". www.naturesmother.co.uk (Wonderful natural pregnancy products available here too!)
Other interesting articles about chiropractic and colic
http://www.chiroweb.com/find/archives/pediatrics/colic/babycry.html
posted by The Wandering Fairy @ 3:22 pm
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