Can a traumatized newborn with a zero-second brain cycle be considered to have a brain injury?
No one has ever asked this question. The answer is “no” in the conventional medical sense, but in our craniosacral fascial world, I am in the “yes” camp.
Having worked in a brain-injury center for sixteen years, I helped hundreds of children with conventional brain injuries. They virtually all presented with zero-second brain cycles and tight fascial webs.
The Gillespie Approach was helpful for all of them on their healing journey. For some children, therapy was the missing piece.
As a baseline, a healthy brain needs to expand and contract well to function optimally. I arbitrarily picked 100 seconds of expansion and 100 seconds of contraction since, at this 200-second cycle, all of the Lancaster babies in our research became happy. I expect that cycle number to go higher in the future as more information is discovered about brain motion and health.
If you are born traumatized with a zero-second brain cycle and retain that cycle for your entire life, you are possibly looking at a long list of unpleasant quality-of-life issues. You can survive and still function but will almost certainly fall short of your full cognitive potential in life.
If you are born with a ten-second or higher brain cycle, you may do better cognitively but still not be the best you can be. There probably will be quite a bit of drag in the fascial web that can affect your bodily functions.
I know that if my brain cycle of 1,680 seconds went to zero seconds from a trauma, I would literally be going out of my mind. That circumstance brings me on board with the brain injury concept, since I would have difficulty continuing my cognitive-dependent discoveries.
I have always been a proponent of the work at birth. Let’s give every newborn a great brain cycle to allow that child to manifest his or her full potential in life.
Just as with any serious injury, I believe that the medical concept of the golden hour would apply with therapy as soon as possible. Gillespie Approach Training is needed for every newborn provider.
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