Hi,
A four weeks old baby came to me last Friday. He had been sleeping badly since the birth.
He had a natural birth, he breastfeeds well, moves well but has a hard time to sleep during the night.
I started to do my examination and could not find any mechanical dysfunction.
But I noticed that his sclera (the white part of his eye) was still yellow which means that there was still some bilirubin present in his system.
The bilirubin is a yellow pigment that is due to the degradation of the hemoglobin and some other proteins. At very high level, it can need special medical treatments (UV-treatments) because it is toxic for the brain of new borns.
There is often the residual bilirubin in new born organism, where its level is not high enough to be dangerous, and produces a yellow coloration of the sclera.
In these situations, osteopathy can be helpful and this is the case of this little baby I am writing about.
Bilirubin's catabolism (the process of molecular degradation) is done by the liver.
When I tested the liver of this new born, I found it completely congested (hard, not mobile) so I decided to mainly treat and drain the liver and the thoracic spine (neurological relation) associated with the liver (T6-8).
I also release his diaphragm. As the diaphragm sits just above the liver, a good mobility will enhance the liver's drainage.
It is always difficult to treat a new born who sleeps badly. Causes can be multiple and sometimes, babies just sleep bad during the first year without any external causes.
Therefore I asked the mum to see the effect of my treatment and to let me know how her baby will be doing the next 2-3 days.
Well, she wrote me the next day to let me know that she just had her best night since he is born! :)
The is no magic in osteopathy, osteopaths should always explain what and why he is doing during his/her treatments.
Thank you for reading this short post.
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