Yesterday I saw a 1-week-old baby. The L.A. dad had heard that craniosacral therapy was good for newborns, and the parents happened to choose me off the Internet to work on their first baby. They were expecting just cranial work to help realign the bones in his head.
On evaluation this baby was very tight with a zero brain cycle. With pure CST, I believe cranial realignment was not in the cards…his system was just too tight. He had experienced 36 hours of labor compared to the average of about 8 hours. From our research that time span is a strong indicator of craniosacral fascial tightness. He was too young to present serious fussiness issues, but without CFT I would expect them in the near future.
I explained to the parents that if it were 1980, I would have done pure craniosacral work with very limited positive results. Since incorporating the fascia that creates the craniosacral fascial system, I would now expect much better results with CFT since his entire system needs to be treated. I could see that I was venturing beyond their comfort zone, but needed to express my truth. Their infant got very fussy during therapy; as I expected, they were unsure whether to continue with further CFT visits.
For infant providers we are presenting something very new to parents for their brand new love of their life. I understand the family needs to be fully comfortable with CFT. Thirty-five years ago I made some heavy negative judgments around parents who did not do CFT for their child. For some of those children, who I felt would suffer their entire lives because of their parents’ decision, the experience ate me up for days. Today I do not tell any parent what to do about any aspect of child raising….at the most I just make suggestions. I try very hard not to not make any judgments since I believe everything is working out perfectly.
I had similar feelings around my corrective asthma work in the 80s. Today 300 million people have asthma in the world and 250,000 die from it every year. In the next ten years the number of people with asthma will grow by 100 million. As one person, I am doing the best I can in life to make something positive happen. I accept that God holds the Plan. It is all working out perfectly.
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