Body Work for babies
I use a combination of several gentle body work techniques to improve feeding and help babies move with ease.
Over the years I have taken many classes to learn a variety of ways to work on babies.
I prefer to use a combination of methods because every baby needs something slightly different.
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Bodies are made up of many different components—skin, hair, muscles, blood vessels, nerves, bones, organs (to name a few)—and fascia lives between them all.
Fascia is the thin white membrane that you can peel off a chicken breast. It is woven throughout our bodies and helps hold us together.
When it’s smooth, fascia enables our muscles to glide easily; our nerves to fire quickly; our bodies to move freely.
When it’s crinkled, movements are restricted, slow, and use more energy. When movement is restricted, we start to use extra muscles in an attempt to create normal movement but the extra muscles weren’t meant todo the hard work and they quickly tire out.
For babies, crinkly fascia can translate to poor feeding, body tension, and often, a fussy baby.
Myofascial release uses gently hand movements to encourage the fascia to straighten out and allow everything to flow with more ease.
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CST tends to focus more on encouraging the fluid in the spine to flow rhythmically and steadily which allows nerves to fire at top speed, blood to flow quickly, and muscles to move without excessive effort.
Similar to MFR, CST uses gentle techniques to encourage the body to move with ease. Often babies will help with the process, adjusting their position to allow access to up areas of their body as if showing where they want to be worked on.
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Babies are born with primitive reflexes that help them navigate their way out of the womb, crawl toward the breast after birth, and latch on their own — all without anyone teaching them how. Feeding reflexes allow babies to latch comfortably and drink milk efficiently, making those early feeding sessions smoother for everyone.
Sometimes, though, these reflexes aren't quite working the way they should — or they may work better on one side of the body than the other. This can show up as difficulty latching, discomfort during feeding, or challenges with movement. When a baby doesn't feel comfortable or safe in their own body, it can make them fussy and unsettled.
As babies grow, their reflexes evolve too. New reflexes emerge to support rolling, crawling, and eventually walking, while earlier reflexes naturally fade away as the movement becomes voluntary rather than automatic, or develop into a more mature reflex — a process called integration. When reflexes aren't waking up or fading on schedule, it can affect motor development and feeding. Sometimes reflexes that have already integrated can reactivate, causing new challenges down the road.
This is where reflex integration therapy comes in. Using gentle, repetitive movements, this therapy helps turn the right reflexes on or off — or simply turn up the volume on one side of the body — to improve latch, comfort, and overall movement.
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Latch pain
Difficulty looking both directions equally
Being comfortable at rest
Relaxing babies who seem to be on edge all the time
Excessive spitting up/reflux
Rolling over too soon or too late
Not opening mouth wide to eat
Only latching in certain positions
Difficulty bringing hands to mouth
Atypical crawling patterns
Head shape