The Ordinary Doula Podcast
Welcome to The Ordinary Doula Podcast with Angie Rosier, hosted by Birth Learning. We help folks prepare for labor and birth with expertise coming from 20 years of experience in a busy doula practice, helping thousands of people prepare for labor, providing essential knowledge and tools for positive and empowering birth experiences.
The Ordinary Doula Podcast
E49: Craniosacral Therapy for Baby's Health and Well-Being with Meaghan Beames - Part 2
Discover how craniosacral therapy can be a game-changer for your baby's health and well-being with our special guest, Meaghan Beames, a registered massage therapist and craniosacral therapist from Toronto, Canada. Join us as Meaghan shares her vast experience in treating newborns and addressing birth-related trauma early on. Learn how simple, gentle techniques can alleviate common issues such as feeding challenges, colic, and flat head syndrome, and potentially prevent long-term problems like speech delays and migraines. Meaghan emphasizes the importance of early intervention, starting as soon as 36 weeks in the NICU, but also reassures parents that it’s never too late to see improvements.
In this enriching conversation, Angie Rosier, your host, explores the vital benefits of craniosacral therapy with Meaghan, highlighting its role from pregnancy through the postpartum period. Meaghan provides actionable advice on when to seek craniosacral therapy, whether for preemies or full-term babies, and demonstrates how early treatment can lead to significant improvements in a baby's overall well-being. Tune in to gain empowering knowledge and practical tips that could make a world of difference for both moms and their little ones.
Please excuse the neighbor's dogs, they love this topic.
Guest: Meaghan Beames, RMT, CST
Website: https://www.beamescst.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beamescst/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/beamescst
Visit our website, here: https://birthlearning.com/
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Show Credits
Host: Angie Rosier
Music: Michael Hicks
Photographer: Toni Walker
Episode Artwork: Nick Greenwood
Producer: Gillian Rosier Frampton
Voiceover: Ryan Parker
Welcome to the Ordinary Doula Podcast with Angie Rozier, hosted by Birth Learning, where we help prepare folks for labor and birth with expertise coming from 20 years of experience in a busy doula practice Helping thousands of people prepare for labor, providing essential knowledge and tools for positive and empowering birth experiences.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Ordinary Doula Podcast. My name is Angie Rozier, your host, and we are here today with a very special guest who comes to us from Canada. We have Megan Beams with us and she's from Toronto, Canada, and she is a cranial sacral therapist and we're going to kind of dive in today and talk about what that is and how it can help in the situation surrounding pregnancy, birth and postpartum, for both moms and babies. So, Megan, I want to give you a minute. Just kind of give us some of your background, tell us a little bit about you, and then we'll kind of dive into our topic today.
Speaker 3:Amazing. Yeah, thank you for having me first of all. So I am Megan Beams. I am a registered massage therapist In Canada. We are registered, we're not licensed. I mean we are licensed but we call ourselves registered.
Speaker 2:That's your term.
Speaker 3:Exactly, and I'm also a craniosacral therapist, so I have been treating babies since 2018 using craniosacral therapy.
Speaker 3:The most important time to be getting cranio is right after being born, because, like I said earlier, the number one trauma that every human experiences is being born and that stays in our body.
Speaker 3:So if this baby experiences a very traumatic birth or a long pushing stage or an emergency C-section, or experiences being born, just born, just being born, that can result in tension, right, and then that could result in a baby having a side preference. Maybe they like to turn their head to one side only, perhaps they're cutting up the nipple within days after being born, or they're falling asleep at the breast and they are not feeding very well, perhaps they don't like tummy time, and then now they're getting a really flat head. Now, you know, now we're working into things that are lifelong right, because those things tend to this is not fear mongering, this is information. Those things tend to turn into either speech delays, mouth breathing, crowded teeth, poor oral health, poor oral functioning, and you know. And so when we can address these things early on in this infant's life, we can avoid so many things later on, even into adulthood, like migraines.
Speaker 2:Yeah, excellent. So tell me again in a perfect world um a baby's born. However it is, they're born. When is a good time for like? Tell us when's a good time for that first visit?
Speaker 3:so let's, let's talk about preemies who have time in, yeah, yeah, time. They need to be seen, they can be seen. I have practitioners because I train practitioners who work in NICUs. They see them starting at 36 weeks in the NICU. Okay, okay, so they can, yeah, and they, they do even less than five grams of pressure of touch. They, um, they generally do very gentle, even more gentle touch on these 36 weekers. So, um, and that's when you know the skin, there's a lot more integrity to the skin and you don't need to worry about that. And then, after that, let's say it's a term baby, they can be seen within the first 24 hours. Some of my practitioners say, who are lactation consultants, go in within that first 24 to 48 hours. They do the releases and they barely need to go back for lactation care because this baby that you know the initial tension.
Speaker 3:Exactly, so the sooner the better. However, if you don't get that time in, it's not too late. It is never too late. I see babies three months, six months, nine months, like starting at that time and we can still see improvements and results. Okay, so it's never too late.
Speaker 2:So tell me, what do you see? Are the if there's a top three things that normal we could say common baby complaints? Right, whether that's colic, whether that's sleep challenges, whether it's feeding challenges, what might be the top three baby ailments, if we call them that baby challenges that craniosacral could address?
Speaker 3:Core feeding, just not. You know whether it's painful latch or this person is like I'm going to go right to bottle. And now on the bottle they are just uncoordinated and having really bad time, also not doing well, right, you're also not.
Speaker 2:And now on the bottle. They are just uncoordinated and have also not doing well, Right.
Speaker 3:You're also not doing well on the bottle. Yeah, craniosacral. Yeah, a hundred percent, and not like craniosacral, just do it. It's like like time is of the essence. Please do it now. You're going to suffer for the next three weeks while you think and ponder whether craniosacral is right.
Speaker 2:Right when you can have it done, Just do it. So the results are kind of quick, right Like you get this craniosacral done and we're going to have some pretty quick turnaround responses in that baby's body.
Speaker 3:Usually within 24 hours, 24 to 48 hours. This parent is like what I have a new baby, cool After the first session and then they need to continue because there's some more left over. We can't get everything in the first session. So you know, minimum three to four sessions, usually, yeah, um and so. So feeding, feeding challenges, you know doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:Number one, number two I will say on that number one as a lactation consultant, so often when I'm working with a client, that's, that's the thing you know there's. So we try all this stuff and we can't figure out, um, what's gonna make the difference on the breast, on the bottle, um, even for I've had a baby a couple weeks ago would not suck like, would not even suck, and that's a problem, right like this baby was beautiful delivery. I mean, it was still right, it was a delivery. So, babies, it's it's work on the mom and the baby. I was not there for it was a home birth. I was not there for the presence of it, but based on I saw him within 24 hours because the baby was not sucking at all. Um, and that's what we went to and said do some cranial. It took me, I tried all my tricks and, did you know, I saw them three times in a couple of days because we needed that baby to eat and craniosacral was. There's some body work, right Like it was key, it was amazing.
Speaker 3:We just got to get the nerves to function. If they're not sucking, the nerves are not functioning well, it's not functioning optimally, right and so that would have been the facial nerve, the trigeminal nerve and the vagus nerve. And we can just go in, do a little bit of work and boom, those nerves work better and the suck reflex comes online, comes on like it's supposed to.
Speaker 2:Very cool, okay, yeah, okay, great Number one feeding is important. Okay, what's next?
Speaker 3:Number two not pooping every day. Ah, there we go. Okay, the people are like, oh, it's fine, they're on breast milk. No, that is a sign you've got slow digestion. That is a sign that your nerves going to your digestive tract are off. That includes adults. If you're not pooping every day, go see a craniosacral therapist. Okay.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah.
Speaker 3:There is something that is off, see the cranio and then add some more fiber. If you're not going every day, okay, okay, but but to me that's a sign that there's something in their spine. There's either something in their spine that maybe there's a twist or tension that's throwing off the signal from the brain to the intestines, and so the intestines are moving slowly, so they're gassy, they're grunty, they might have a distended belly button or a distended belly uh, and they're. You know, they're really struggling. Craniosacral therapy.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, excellent, cool.
Speaker 3:And then number three yeah, I can, I can expand always Cool, cool so that.
Speaker 2:well, that brings me to the gassiness of babies, right, Some babies they're, they're uncomfortable, they're squirming, they're, they don't, they don't rest, they never rest into their body. Super well, I know they have immature digestive systems for a few months. But and I had my mentor who I spent a year with becoming a lactation consultant she often she did home visits and worked in a hospital and did office visits but she oftentimes would have a craniosacral therapist meet her at the appointments and it was amazing to see, in conjunction right with lactation consultant, see the work that happened very quickly on site and the effects that had on babies. So again, I wish I had you in my back pocket.
Speaker 3:Come to appointments. We need to get more of us. Yeah, no, and you make a great point. You know, sometimes it really is an immature gut and so there's. You know, the baby can't actually digest the food that's in there. However we can, we can help that digestive tract move along a little bit better, you know, with the with the help of, let's say, probiotics or increasing the gut microbiome of the person who is feeding them. So that is, yeah, we can do those things as well.
Speaker 3:Okay, and the last and final thing and this is the one that I'm like, please, please, please, go see a craniosacral therapist is, if your baby isn't meeting milestones, any milestone, okay, because the human body is designed to work and, let's say, they've got genetic things that are keeping them from meeting milestones. That's not what I'm talking about. Or perhaps they have cerebral palsy because of birth trauma. That's not what I'm talking about, although they can benefit. But I'm just talking about the babies who don't have those things and they're not meeting their milestones. They're not rolling, they're not pushing up, they aren't, you know, or they're not crawling their milestones. They're not rolling, they're not pushing up um, they aren't, you know, or they're not crawling. And this person's like just gonna go straight to walking.
Speaker 3:no, no, no, please, please, please they need to crawl, they need to crawl, they need to roll, they need to spend time comfortably on their tummies. Um, for brain development, right, it's not just milestones to say to tick a box, it is literally brain development, that is, it is paving the way for their future adult life, even their future child life. So, getting them to meet milestones if they're not meeting it, sometimes it's because something hurts in their body and they can't tell us that they can't. They can't, they just, you know parents just say, oh, they don't like tummy time, or they roll immediately out of tummy time, or you know something like that. And that to me means okay, well, what can I find in their body that is feeling uncomfortable?
Speaker 3:maybe it's their front body is really tight, maybe their hips are are locked, you know, maybe you know, and it feels like a deep stretch in their front body or maybe there's something off in their hips and then or along their spine and when they do that it feels like they're pinching their back Right, so we can find these things. The other thing is some babies, when they're in tummy time, if they've started to get kind of a flat head, those babies often feel lightheaded in tummy time. Interesting, yes, because the blood can't drain super well. So with a craniosacral therapist we can go in. Not only can we help the body, but we can also help reshape the head so we can get more drainage, even an optimal head shape. We can do head reshaping, remolding that type of thing. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Just to really help with those things, and that's again for really optimal or as optimal as we can get for this baby brain development Okay excellent, so I'm going to ask again.
Speaker 2:I didn't prepare you for this question either, so hopefully it's okay. Tell me about like with tongue ties, lip ties, oral, any oral restrictions. How might craniosacral come into play in situations where we have that, whether it's released or not?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. So. I work with families who do both. So they either choose to release or choose not to release, and I am happy to support both. And when I'm training practitioners, I say we are here to serve the family. We are not here to put our opinions on. We are here to serve the family. We are not here to put our opinions on. We are here to serve. So with a tongue tie right, let's say, this baby was diagnosed with like a tie that goes right to the tip of their tongue. Okay, that started in utero. They probably are very tight in their front body because it's attached all the way down.
Speaker 2:It's not just their tongue that we're talking about. Right, exactly, exactly. There's that.
Speaker 3:It's it that attaches all the way into the intestines. So there's tension and there's pulling and there's lots of fascial restrictions in that area and they've never had a tongue that moves. So if they choose to go, then go in and release that tongue. Well, it's been living at the floor of the mouth, that's all it knows.
Speaker 3:So we want to and it's being, it's going to go back and it's being pulled that way and so it's going to go back and it's going to reattach. So getting the um cranial before release is very important so that we can say, hey tongue. We know that you live at the floor of the mouth, but we're going to get. We're going to get the stuff in your neck and in your and your, your collarbone and in your chest. We're going to release that so that your your tongue can move.
Speaker 3:Exactly, it's not being pulled down by fascia lower Um. Now, if they choose not to, or actually, let's, let's go back a little bit. Um, well, if they choose not to, we can, we can encourage more movement by giving some like stretching under the tongue, um, you know, even um, even on their chin, and in there this is called the hyoid.
Speaker 2:So right, in the floating bone.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, the floating bone in there.
Speaker 3:We can wiggle that around because there's so many muscles that are attached to that that can help relieve some of the tension that builds up in a tongue tie, and it will always build up with a tongue tie.
Speaker 3:So so you know, daily relief of that tension, um. And then let's say they are diagnosed with a posterior tie. Okay, so this posterior tie is very much like that tongue tie, the, the one that goes to the anterior tip of the tongue, where this baby doesn't have a fully functioning tongue, it can't do all of those movements, um, and it could also be pulled down by other parts of the body. So we've released those so the tongue can raise to the roof of the mouth, um, so that when they do go in, or if they choose to go in and get a release, the tongue doesn't then sit at the floor of the mouth, um. Now let's get to the ones where let's say they were diagnosed with a possible posterior tie. They go in for a tongue tie revision and nothing, there are no improvements. That, to me, tells me that it's not a tongue tie, but that possible posterior tie was actually cranial nerve dysfunction and that the tension that was experienced in the tongue was due to something you know, a nerve, that was functioning.
Speaker 3:Yes, the nerve was not functioning, and that causes hypertonicity of the tongue, so it acts like a tongue tie. So this is why getting the body work before the tongue tie release is so very important, because what if it's not a tie?
Speaker 2:It could prevent. Yeah, interesting.
Speaker 3:Yes exactly.
Speaker 2:So like you said any baby that's born could benefit from.
Speaker 3:Were they born? Amazing Cranial, get some cranial sagral.
Speaker 2:Yes, very cool. So this could for those situations with tongue or lip ties, that release or buccal ties where a release is required, like if they need to do a revision. Craniosacral is going to be good before after, but it sounds like in some cases it could prevent the need of a revision. So maybe start there for those who are open to that, start there with some craniosacral work. If we're looking at and I just met with somebody yesterday there's some signs of tongue tie. For sure. I didn't look immediately in the mouth, but there's some notable signs that this baby could have a tongue tie. But the mom's milk supply was phenomenal, so baby's growing while eating quickly. But then when we got in the mouth it was pretty obvious, pretty tight lip tie and a very prominent tongue tie as well. And the mom was so cute.
Speaker 2:This baby's two and a half weeks old. She was kind of crushed by that and I just said you know it looks like I noted the presence you know is. So you know this is what we can kind of see and then we go into what could be done about that. But she was really I love the word she chose. She said oh, this is the first thing that hasn't been perfect about her and I said oh no, no, no, it's not that you know she's still absolutely perfect, but it was, it's something.
Speaker 2:And as they talked to, both mom and dad were there. They said, gosh, it's hard to make decisions right To like, make parenting decisions. They now have to, and I'm not the one to follow up with. You know they're going to look at like an ENT or pediatric dentist, of course, and choose if they want to do that. But this information and I did tell them there's some good body work I'm going to call them up today and say hey, because she doesn't want to have to do a procedure right Like, even though that it can be very effective in some situations. I love that there are other options for people to know about.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you know her story isn't uncommon too. There are so many parents who choose not to because they don't want to have to make that decision, and their choice is to not put their baby through that procedure, and I support every choice. Whether they put them through the procedure or don't put them through the procedure, that is their individual choice. My goal is to avoid Minimal right, minimal intervention. Minimal intervention, you know, because I've seen too many babies who have gone in for a tongue tie revision and then it made it worse.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or it didn't make a difference, right, they chose to do it. Sometimes it's life changing, right. Sometimes it's life changing and we've got a baby who can now suck and swallow, and absolutely. But other times, yeah, it's not.
Speaker 3:They make that choice and it didn't do what with what they hoped, yeah, and so you know it's so hard, but it's. You don't know? Yeah, we don't know, and but with cranial, like with cranial sacral.
Speaker 2:It sounds like that is a very benign effort, right? It's going to have positive impacts, even if it's not on specifically on the tongue or that you know, any kind of fascia tightening that's impacting feeding. We're going to have positive impact.
Speaker 1:It's not going to be a no impact experience yeah.
Speaker 3:Exactly you know presence of Thai or not. Presence of Thai. Yeah, exactly you know presence of tie or not. Presence of tie, it's going to have a positive impact for sure, yeah, very cool yeah very cool.
Speaker 2:So I have. I've taken a client to with a baby. You talked about a rebirth process for babies. This client was born, um, by cesarean, or the baby was born by cesarean and super tight like she. She probably didn't go to cranial until she was about three months old, but she was always just crunched to her right side I believe it was and this cranial sacral therapist did took her. She took her through a rebirth Like her position. She took her off the edge of her table and it was pretty fascinating and that baby did loosen up. She was able to be much more comfortable and continue to grow and develop. She's four or five years old now. Be much more comfortable and continue to grow and develop. She's four or five years old now, so cute.
Speaker 3:But yeah, it was cool to see a rebirth experience, for, yeah, they're fun. They're fun and there are different practitioners who do it in different ways. I will say that there are some who I like the way that you're. The practitioner you described did it off the edge of the table at three months, right. So this baby's a little older and they've had. They have the musculature to support the weight of their head while upside down.
Speaker 2:Interesting.
Speaker 3:Younger? Yes, so I do. I do caution about, you know, holding the upside down unsupported for the younger ones, because tractioning of very delicate structures like the brainstem and other nerves that go down the spine and through the neck. So there are ways of doing it but you know, the younger they are, the more support of the weight of their head they need. The older they are, the less support they need while they're going through this rebirth experience. And it's pretty cool, it is very fun to experience.
Speaker 2:So you brought up another question. If that's okay, so tell me about. I mean, I know it's going to be amazing but the impact like to a baby who's born with instrument assisted delivery, whether that's a vacuum or forceps. So I've seen lots of those I mean not not you know proportionally a few, right, but I have seen that numerous times in my career, whether it's a vacuum or forceps, I know that's crazy kind of traction when you just said traction on that head. So tell me, in those situations where craniosacral could come into play, when we have an instrument assistedassisted delivery, For sure.
Speaker 3:So I want to preface this and say that I am very sensitive to the fact that perhaps the parents who are listening have either had babies who have experienced this or they fear these types of things. What I want to say is, yes, they can be pretty traumatic for the baby's experience. However, with cranial, we can really help their body release those areas and process what happened, or their experience. So that's my, that's my little caveat to that, say, the tractioning with forceps. Let's say, the forceps not only do they traction, they also compress the cranium right. And so there are some adults who, when they go through their rebirthing experience, they, um, they, they talk about how painful the forceps squeezing their head was Right, and, and and they realize that that pain is the same one that they experienced for their migraines and and so that you know those forceps, that feeling of being, you know, squished.
Speaker 2:A compression.
Speaker 3:Yes, exactly. So what cranial does is we feel into those cranial bones. We can even feel into the tissues, listen to the tissues underneath the cranial bones and feel for tension. Right, I was saying that even around the brain is fascia. So we can feel that fascia and we can release that fascia, and so this baby, who has this squeezing effect, we can release that, so that lifelong they don't have to experience those migraines, those headaches that they possibly could in their adult years.
Speaker 2:So you can prevent a lot of down the road challenges early on. Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Cool, absolutely Speaking of which, I was in a Lyft the other day and this man was like, oh, I couldn't work. He was my driver. He was like, oh, yesterday I couldn't work. I had a migraine. You know, I get them every couple of months. And I looked at his head and I was like, oh, where do you get your migraines?
Speaker 3:and he was like, oh, I could tell I knew exactly where he was looking at it and he, you know, he was pointing at his left side, his left eye and all the way behind his back of his left ear, and I knew that when he was a baby he had a left side turning preference because that side was just flatter than the other side. Interesting, yes, and I was like you should go see a craniosacral therapist. Here is the person you're gonna go see. Take care of those migraines, work on those migraines, so, um, so that's, I don't know. I didn't ask about his birth. It was only a 10 minute ride, so, um, but you could do what you can tell them what I did.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure, for sure, um. But so first for forceps. You know, there's that squeezing, but then there's also that pulling, like pulling on the neck, and so, um, pulling on the neck can then cause this baby to have like a very we're going to use air quotes here lazy feed.
Speaker 2:Because they're in pain. Yeah, yeah, they do not like to latch and the suction they need to create in their head with that kind of pressure on their head, it's painful for them.
Speaker 3:They've already got a headache.
Speaker 1:They don't want to increase the pressure on their head.
Speaker 3:They don't want that. They're just going to be like no, thank you. Yeah, I'm not going to eat, let me sleep for a few days, yeah, so the sooner those babies, the more forceps babies can be seen, the better as well. Again, incredibly gentle touch. We do not, and for those babies it's even less.
Speaker 3:We might even use like one gram of pressure which is almost nothing Right, which is like essentially intention. So, um, so yeah, we use very, very gentle touch. Now, when it comes to to vacuum, there's this suctioning right, so they, it's a literal vacuum on the skin of the scalp Right, and how many of you have had a hickey before?
Speaker 3:You know what I'm saying it doesn't't feel good, it's a big hickey, okay, so there's going to be cooling of blood, there's going to be broken capillaries, there's going to be, it's going to be painful. Then there's going to be a bruise, and bruises are painful and and and so, and then you know, pulling again of the cranial bones and the, the fascia that surrounds the brain. This can cause headaches and also a very, you know, slow to feed infant and cranial nerve dysfunction in their mouth. So lots of things. It can produce lots of things and, just like we do with forceps, we go in, we feel what you know, what was produced, the tension that was produced. We feel for that, we encourage it to let go and usually this baby is thriving in a few days.
Speaker 2:Interesting, okay, yeah, so especially when babies well, like you said, anybody, anybody that's born um but instrument assisted delivery is any what might be perceived by mom or baby as a traumatic birth could be benefited by cranial sacral pretty quickly. Absolutely, absolutely, cool, yeah, cool, I love it.
Speaker 3:Okay, Any any last little nuggets about how cranial sacral benefits babies as we wrap up this episode we wrap up this episode you know, I think that and we've said it many times every baby can benefit I realized that it's not in everyone's financial capabilities to go out and seek care. So, if that's out of your realm of possibilities, touch your baby with gentle. Touch all over, gentle like very soft, gentle, massaging, like as soft as you think you're going go softer, touch right and very slow it's. It's not like petting it. It's not like massaging either Right or very light. Okay.
Speaker 2:It's almost like. Like if you're touching butterfly wings, right, and you don't want to damage the Okay.
Speaker 3:Exactly, but slower right, and that you might even notice your baby sleeps really well tonight. Yeah, you just drag your fingers really slowly along their spine. You know, just dragging right you connect in a way that you're not sweeping along the skin, but you're kind of dragging along the skin. Your baby might sleep really well tonight and then or have a massive blowout later. Yeah, a release of intestinal content yes.
Speaker 2:A release of intestinal content yes, exactly, okay, okay, awesome. Well, megan, thank you for sharing your expertise today. I have learned so much. This is a practice that I've come to really appreciate for myself, and thanks for exploring that with us both. For adults, for moms, for babies it sounds like this is something that everyone who was born can benefit from. I love that. Cool, cool. Well, megan, thanks so much for being with us here today. We appreciate your time. And again, this is Angie Rozier with the Ordinary Doula Podcast. I hope that you can go out today and do something that you absolutely enjoy connect with another human and make a difference in the world for good. We will see you next time.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Ordinary Doula podcast with Angie Rozier, hosted by Birth Learning. Episode credits will be in the show notes Tune in next time as we continue to explore the many aspects of giving birth.