Maternity & Lactation Care:
Prenatal and postnatal health support for you and your baby
Pregnancy & Birth
You go through a multitude of changes inside and out while pregnant, in childbirth, when greeting your baby face to face for the first time, and while breastfeeding and caring for your newborn. Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy effectively supports your own individual health priorities during your pregnancy, all the while helping you to prepare for birth and to recover well. BCST also promotes you & your growing baby co-creating secure attachment prenatally and postnatally, which establishes a healthy foundation for your baby’s emotional and physical development, for healthy relationship building, and for living a balanced life.
Newborn & Infant
Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy supports your baby integrating their birth experience, providing healing where needed.
A prompt assessment of your newborn within the first week of life outside the womb is very insightful and beneficial. It’s an opportunity to detect challenges your infant may be experiencing postnatally, such as difficulty breastfeeding. It also helps determine whether a true tongue-tie or a faux tongue-tie is present. A newborn screening also provides insights to the practitioner regarding a healing treatment plan in the case of digestive issues, colic, torticollis, autonomic nervous system disregulation, birth trauma, etc. Supportive measures to integrate at home are also provided.
Lactation Support
It is ideal when breastfeeding comes easily to both mother and baby. However, when challenges present and add to the exhaustion of caring for an infant, seeking lactation support immediately is recommended.
The reality is many factors potentially play a part in impacting a mother and her newborn’s mutual breastfeeding success. Some of these include intrauterine positioning, along with varying degrees of compression a baby experiences during childbirth, in addition to birth interventions, and postnatal routine care interrupting or even eliminating the sequences between the birth process and the first latch initially following birth.
Craniosacral therapy can help moms and babies get on the right track.
Pregnancy & Birth
You go through a multitude of changes inside and out while pregnant, in childbirth, when greeting your baby face to face for the first time, and while breastfeeding and caring for your newborn. Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy effectively supports your own individual health priorities during your pregnancy, all the while helping you to prepare for birth and to recover well. BCST also promotes you & your growing baby co-creating secure attachment prenatally and postnatally, which establishes a healthy foundation for your baby’s emotional and physical development, for healthy relationship building, and for living a balanced life.
Newborn & Infant
A prompt assessment of your newborn within the first week of life outside the womb is very beneficial. It helps detect true tongue-tie when present and rule out faux tongue-ties. The screening also provides insights to the practitioner regarding a healing treatment plan in the case of birth trauma, colic, digestive issues, torticollis, autonomic nervous system disregulation, etc. Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy supports your baby integrating their birth experience, providing healing where needed, and detecting and treating breastfeeding challenges. Supportive measures to integrate at home are also provided.
Lactation Support
It is ideal when breastfeeding comes easily to both mother and newborn. However, when challenges present and add to the exhaustion of caring for a newborn, it is wise to seek lactation support immediately.
The reality is that certain intrauterine positioning, birth interventions and the varying degrees of compression the baby experiences during childbirth can impact their success. Craniosacral therapy can help moms and babies get on the right track.
BCST is beneficial to both you and your baby in the treatment of
intrauterine, childbirth recovery, postpartum, & neonatal issues:
- Anxiety
- Attachment/Bonding interruptions
- Back labour
- Birth trauma
- Brachycephaly or Plagiocephaly
- Breastfeeding (suck, swallow, & breathe)
- Cescarean Birth trauma/recovery
- “Colic”
- Cord around neck
- Digestive problems
- Distress during labour
- Fast or long labour
- Tongue-tie assessment & faux tongue-tie treatment
- Forcep delivery
- Head misshapen at birth
- Hormonal imbalances
- Induction
- Infant Reflex Development issues
- Infant Reflux
- Injury
- Malpresentation
- Medicated birth
- Postpartum depression
- Pre and Post frenotomy
- Premature birth
- Recovery issues
- Ridging of suture lines
- Separation at birth
- Shock
- Sleep issues
- Suctioning/clearing of airways
- Surgical trauma
- Torticolis
- Vacuum extraction delivery
Pregnancy & Birth
Maternity Session
Your initial session includes reviewing your health history and current health priorities. At the start of every session, I invite you to set an intention and consciously include your baby as being a part of the session, which supports prenatal bonding. It will also inspire you to adopt a mindset of co-birthing with your baby.
The approach to childbirth preparation in these sessions is one that models maintaining a conscious connection with your growing baby, including communication practices throughout the birth process from start to finish. I also pay close attention to prenatal insights that can support you and your baby.
Craniosacral therapy supports both your physical and emotional wellbeing, all the while cultivating attuning to your baby and deepening your connection with each other
The self care you grant yourself during your pregnancy will promote your nervous system to regulate with ease and help your newborn’s nervous system to settle with ease. Cultivating this “template” of health plays an influential role in supporting the rising and falling continuum of your newborn’s 9 instinctive stages when placed on you skin to skin immediately after birth.
With every session, there is an opportunity to go over what you noticed and sensed, followed by what I noticed and sensed. We discuss resources and strategies for supporting you and your baby during pregnancy and for deepening your mutual experience of prenatal bonding. These help you optimize and prolong the benefits of your session, as well as enhance your self care practices.
Breastfeeding Preparation
This package service has been created because so many mothers who experience struggles with breastfeeding their newborn report wishing they had taken the time during their pregnancy to learn supportive strategies for ensuring comfortable and enjoyable vs. painful and stressful nursing experiences.
All the new moms who reached out to me for lactation support in my family clinic shared how much their postnatal journey of nurturing their newborn would have been less worrisome and challenging had they been more prepared and equipped with strategies, tools, and resources. As the saying goes: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.
“When I became pregnant with my third child, I sought out Christina to walk my family and me through our new journey because she was highly recommended by friends who had benefited from her BCST and maternity services. My pregnancy and birth experience were nothing short of transformational for me. Christina’s sincerity, intuition and wisdom helped me prepare for birthing and breastfeeding, as well as savour the time my baby was in utero. She patiently guided me through my fears and how to be in communication with my own body and being. She also taught me how to nurture trust in myself and in the process of birth, and helped me to connect more deeply with the soul growing inside me.”
Unfacilitated Latching Completes the Birth Process
The experience of birth, whether it be vaginally or by cesarean, calls for a much needed immediate resting period. The opportunity to rest skin to skin gives way to a new series of meaningful postnatal impulses within your baby’s body to emerge. They express themselves in a rise and fall rhythm of potency surging and settling and are involved in establishing a healthy balanced nervous system.
It is of great value and importance to the newborn for their parents and birth caregivers to yield to the natural sequencing that completes the birth process, known today as the magical hour or more precisely as the 9 instinctive newborn stages.
Waiting for these stages to arise naturally during the first hour after birth (possibly longer with medicated births) is the sacred time when babies get the chance to do what is biologically programmed in the brain at the time of birth; to claim their mother. By keeping mother and baby skin to skin together, these 9 instinctive stages are given the chance to emerge in an intelligent sequence to reduce the impact of shock from birthing their body, to support nervous system co-regulation, birth integration, and to optimize breastfeeding success. Each stage can be viewed as a piece of a foundational neurological sequence. Disruption to newborns experiencing their 9 instinctive stages in sequence threatens their ability to latch successfully, impacts the health of their Triune-Autonomic Nervous System, which influences the quality and degree of their secure attachment needed for developing an abundant baseline of health from which they can feel safe, grow and thrive.
Uninterrupted skin to skin time with your newborn on your chest/abdomen creates a sense of safety that is a whole-body sensation, activating the amygdala and registering in the frontal cortex that all is well. The 9 instinctive stages of the newborn completes with breastfeeding initiated by your baby’s own will and readiness. It can feel quite primitive since all kinds of messaging is taking place including activating the caregiving responses for looking after your newborn. Those who are present for the yielding to this final milestone of birth are given the gift of witnessing the miraculous wisdom that lives both within the newborn’s body and within the wider lens of birth reaching its completion.
Newborn & Infant Care
Newborn Assessment
It is a wellness priority to ensure your baby’s recovery from birth and their emotional and physical development are on track from the start. The assessment begins with briefly discussing information pertaining to your pregnancy and birth experience.
Next, your baby will receive a sequence of gentle contacts which pick up on tension areas and strengthen both their midline and proprioceptive awareness.
The ATLFF™ screening is used to assess the presence of a true tongue-tie and week out faux tongue-ties. It will either detect one or rule it out. The screening additionally provides useful insights regarding residual tension patterns in your baby’s oral cavity and whole body.
Breastfeeding should not be painful, therefore, we will
go over best posture and positioning practices for comfortable and optimal breastfeeding. However, if your baby continues to struggle at the breast or nursing continues to feel painful after posture and positioning have been optimized, a craniosacral therapy treatment plan will be recommended in order to release strain patterns present in your infant’s body and to establish ease with nursing.
In certain cases, such as torticolis, chiropractic treatment may be recommended in addition to craniosacral therapy. A pro-active response to optimizing your baby’s health includes making sure tension and strain patterns are released sooner than later. The axiom “What fires together wires together” says it all. A treatment plan may include some playful therapeutic “exercises” recommended to do at home in order to sustain and strengthen the positive changes.
Infant Session
Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy is a supportive light touch treatment that can help your baby integrate their birth experience. It helps your newborn to unwind both physically and emotionally from stressors during gestation, from intrauterine impacts, and from challenges and or trauma that occured during birth.
Some signs of the above are problems with latching, the presence of a clenched jaw, torticolis, a misshapen head, ridging of the cranial sutures, bruising (or other injury), faux tongue-tie.
Another situation which benefits greatly from craniosacral therapy is preparing for tongue-tie revision, and for post procedure healing.
Secure attachment between an infant and parent(s)
or primary caregiver(s) is key to ensuring the infant feels safe, protected, lovable, accepted, and free to enjoy the flow
of life. Sessions help deepen an already existing healthy attachment, strengthen a weakened attachment or help establish secure attachment (very helpful when a mother and baby experienced being separated at birth).
During these sessions, the aligning of both mother and baby’s nervous systems is regulated and settles together in a very similar way to what nature intended in the first hours after birth, between mother and newborn, skin to skin during the 9 instinctive newborn stages.
As I observe and listen, I support your newborn’s healing priorities through craniosacral touch and accurate reflection, inviting reconnection where it may have gotten lost.
“My midwife recommended I take my baby boy to see Christina for a newborn assessment. Christina confirmed that his challenges with latching on my right side were stemming from an acquired torticollis, possibly from his position while in utero. A supportive measures plan for in-home therapeutic movement and touch was set in motion, as well as a weekly collaborative BCST and chiropractic treatment plan that helped resolve the issue.”
“Christina was such a soothing and calm presence in the overwhelming early weeks of new parenthood. We went to see her to support our newborn with processing and integrating his birth experience. She not only helped us with that, but also gave us invaluable support on our journey to breastfeeding successfully, which was so important to us.”
Lactation Support
Lactation Assessment
When mothers and babies experience breastfeeding challenges, it is important to assess what is at the root of the issues interfering with optimal nursing and infant digestion. The problems which arise can be diverse and require taking a closer look at your newborn’s lingual frenulum function and appearance, not just to check for a tongue-tie, but also to determine whether residual tension patterns are presenting in your baby’s oral cavity and body and disrupting comfortable and effective nursing. If a true tongue-tie is detected, a frenotomy is recommended.
Every woman’s body and breasts are unique, as is every baby’s mouth and body, which makes it also important to go over best posture practices and optional positions catered to both your comfort and your baby’s comfort.
Breastfeeding should not be painful, therefore, if any discomfort is still present after a tongue-tie has been ruled out and posture and positioning have been optimized, a craniosacral therapy treatment plan will be recommended in order to release the strain patterns present in your infant’s body.
Lactation Support
If your baby continues to struggle with suckling or breastfeeding continues to feel painful for you after posture and positioning have been optimized or if the Lactation Assessment reveals residual tension patterns which need releasing, a supportive treatment plan is proposed.
Depending on the severity of the challenges, anywhere from 2 to 4 weekly or bi-weekly craniosacral sessions will be recommended for moderate breastfeeding challenges and 5 or more weekly or bi-weekly sessions for complex lactation issues, such as torticolis. In cases of severe torticolis, chiropractic treatment may be recommended in addition to craniosacral therapy.
A pro-active response to optimizing your baby’s health includes making sure tension and strain patterns are released sooner than later. The axiom “What fires together wires together” says it all. Alongside a treatment plan, some playful therapeutic “exercises” are recommended to do at home in order to sustain and strengthen the positive changes taking hold during sessions
“It was suspected that my newborn had a posterior tongue-tie, so I went to see Christina for a newborn assessment. I discovered the breastfeeding pain I was experiencing was not due to a tongue-tie, but from tension in my baby’s frenulum and in his body, resulting from a lengthy birth. In addition to infant craniosacral treatments to release the tension patterns, Christina also helped us learn and practice better posture and positioning so we could both feel more comfortable during breastfeeds.”
“The first week with our newborn baby went by in a flash. As new parents, we benefited from our sessions with Christina and our baby girl learned to breastfeed like a champ.”
There’s More to Breastfeeding than Meets the Eye:
There’s actually more to breastfeeding than the joy and satisfaction of providing breastmilk to your baby, known as the gold standard of nutrition for newborns. It’s just as important to recognize and acknowledge the mental health benefits for both mother and baby that come from physically and emotionally bonding when their breastfeeding experience is optimized. What most people don’t know, however, is that the physiology involved in breastfeeding is one of Nature’s wise ways of supporting the cranial bones to reposition themselves after birth, of initiating proper jaw development, of preparing for eating solid foods, and last but not least, of developing and strengthening the Social Engagement Nervous System for a well established and balanced Autonomic Nervous System for the whole of your baby’s life.