Nourishing Neurology - Crying Babies

NOURISHING NEUROLOGY – CRYING BABIES Step one – Breathe

Take care of your own neurology; babies are challenging. They also rely on YOUR brain, the part that regulates emotions, because that part is not yet developed in their brain.

Research tells us that as many as 40% of babies suffer from colic-inconsolable crying for more than 3 hours a day, more than 3 days a week, for more than 3 weeks. When you can’t find a cause for the crying, it is stressful for the entire family. You can try some calming techniques:

•Deep pressure massage – squeezing the ankles, legs, knees; then the wrists, arm and elbow (there are lots of receptors around the joints). Then do a firm pressure across the body from one shoulder to the opposite hip.

•Be sure when you are holding and patting your baby’s back that you don’t pat between the shoulders where you can wind up the sympathetic system, which is our fight or flight system. Pat on the nappy, which is the sacrum or base of the spine and parasympathetic system for rest and digest.

•Crying in babies receiving chiropractic care reduced by around 50%. Miller et al. J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 2012; 35(8):600-7. Taking care of babies’ neurology is very important; birth can be tough for both parties and cause spinal and cranial stress.

•Try rocking them on their tummies on a swiss ball. Good for baby and gives Mum’s and Dad’s body a break.

Skin to skin with baby can help calm the system.

Dr Lorene Dennis Chiropractor