Baby Bowen

Gentle and Effective Baby Bowen…

Baby Bowen is gentle and effective for your baby’s health to help relieve any physical discomfort – resulting from an arduous birth or a maladjustment that may be affecting their sleeping or digestion. Your session includes a consultation with how you can offer baby relief too and a treatment on baby.

In times of need, when your baby is distressed and you are unable to relieve your baby’s distress, Baby Bowen can make an immediate difference to your baby’s wellbeing, and to yours as well.

$140.00 for a 1 hour consultation, including hands-on demonstration on baby and accompanying parent(s), and teaching you how to do  Baby Bowen on baby when needed.

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Contact The Healing Practice Learn how we can help you or Call Claire on 0438 216 351.

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How will Baby Bowen benefit your baby?

• Even a newborn can benefit from a Baby Bowen treatment.  Because all babies are not born equal!
  Baby Bowen is gentle and effective for your baby’s health to help relieve any physical discomfort – resulting from an arduous birth or a maladjustment that may be affecting their sleeping or digestion.
• Some things can be hard to quantify and a baby’s reasons for crying is probably at the top of any parents list. If your baby cries a lot without an obvious cause, or is not soothed easily, seems to be in distress post feeds or is unhappy for several periods in the day or night, then it may be time to consider other possibilities to see what else might be going on for baby.
• Baby Bowen can make both a subtle and profound measurable difference to your baby’s health and to your own well-being and peace of mind.
• Mothers can easily learn the specific Baby Bowen moves to assist their baby’s ongoing improvement as well.
• You are likely to only require one single session to help correct your baby’s colic or reflux. I will instruct you how to apply them next time baby needs them.

What will happen in a Baby Bowen session?

The first and probably only session you will need to do in order to learn Baby Bowen.

First step –  Observe your baby and gather more information about baby and you.

Second step – Apply the simple Baby Bowen moves and observe baby again.

Third step – Your turn to apply the Baby Bowen moves so you know how to  treat your baby, either as a preventative measure or to relieve baby’s symptoms.

A follow-up maybe recommended and is FREE* for your baby (within 15 minutes or a small fee will apply). More treatment may be needed if there are other problems for baby.

Baby Bowen is a gentle treatment and consists of a series of moves on baby’s back and the chest area. However, it is important to observe your baby before any actual application, to find out more about baby’s environment and comfort or discomfort in this case.

The initial discussion is an important part of the consultation, as baby can readily be diagnosed or thought to have colic or reflux prior to a feed, while attaching, during a feed or after a feed.

Physical problems need to be also considered if baby appears to have problems attaching well to the breast.

• Sometimes a baby is called a ‘fussy’ baby, whereas an investigation of baby’s mouth might show ‘tongue-tie’ (a thin piece of skin under baby’s tongue, the lingual frenulum, is tight and restricts the up and down movement of baby’s tongue) or a short palate, making it difficult for baby to attach well to the breast.
• The age of baby is another important factor. A pre-term baby may also struggle with breastfeeding as it hasn’t the maturation of coordinating  suck, swallow and breathing. Signs may be milk spilling out the corners of baby’s mouth or gasping / choking during bottle feeds in particular.

It is also important to understand baby’s environment at home or out, to work out if anything there might be causing baby’s discomfort.

Other Factors to Consider:

• An older sibling disrupting a comfortable feed for baby and you
• Baby’s last feed before bedtime conflicting with other evening activities, such as – settling another child, preparing a meal for partner’s arrival from work
• Rushing to attend an appointment and rushing baby to feed

These factors or others are important to consider and hopefully correct so your baby can be happy again, more comfortable in their little bodies to settle, feed well and sleep more securely.
The Baby Bowen moves are done on a happy baby rather than a grumpy, unsettled one.

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Baby Bowen can assist with:

• Issues of Discomfort of neck tortion (tension in muscle tissue) can often cause baby discomfort in routine handling
• Sometimes there can be unresolved physical issues affecting baby as the result of a difficult or prolonged birth
• Aiding digestion re retained air in baby’s gut, aka ‘wind’/colic
• Aiding slow bowels. In the early weeks of a baby’s life, frequency of bowel movements can vary from after each feed, to daily, or every few days to an extreme of 11-14 days, but still considered normal. This tends to ease as a baby’s digestion matures but for some babies, it can cause great discomfort for baby and for parents as uncomfortable observers. Baby Bowen can be effective in helping to both relieve and stimulate improvement.
• Overloaded nervous system
• Colic and Reflux

What is Colic?

Colic is the term most likely to be used to cover any internal discomfort that your baby might be suffering from; wind or gas, bloated tummy, straining, passing wind without relief, bringing legs up and crying, appearing in pain and more crying, crying for no apparent reason. Colic is generally described as ‘baby crying for 3 hours at a time, more than 3 days a week for more than 3 weeks. Babies take a while to mature into their bodies and into their digestive and elimination systems. It is normal for this to take 3 – 6 months to settle.

How to treat Colic

Most parents will visit their GP, or their Early Childhood Health Nurse, google it, and seek opinions from their own mothers and friends. Some people say it doesn’t exist, easy to say unless you have a very cranky, upset little baby that won’t settle, no matter what you do!

Visiting your GP is mostly a good start, because they can assess your baby to be sure there is nothing else going on, that might be causing their distress.

• Calm your baby by reducing over-stimulation of too much activity, exposure to busy environments, too many people holding baby. In some societies, the first 40 days are spent with both mother and baby quietly inside and out in nature for short sun exposure, to bond and adapt to baby’s new world, securely and quietly. This builds secure attachment.
• Give yourself time and space to stay at home with baby, without too much hyper-activity. Get others to do chores and help where possible.
• Babies don’t want busy lives. They want security, warmth and food.

If you think your baby has colic, WebMD offers useful tips. See article here. Read on for a quick overview of Colic.

What is Reflux?

Colic symptoms are often mixed up with Reflux symptoms, in that both conditions cause a baby to be fretful and cranky and cry a lot. Reflux or more correctly gastro-oesophageal reflux is: when acid from the stomach and contents coming in, cause an unpleasant mix and a ‘backrush’ that goes back up the eating tube / oesophagus into the mouth, in the form of undigested or milky-like posseting or vomit.

There can be various reasons why this happens: 

• Babies spend a lot of time lying down, have a liquid diet and a short oesophagus.
• The sphincter valve between stomach and oesophagus in small and new babies can be less efficient in closing properly. This improves with the baby’s maturity and growth as the valve closes more efficiently and the oesophagus lengthens.

These factors make reflux more noticeable. It happens in children and adults as well but is generally mild in its discomfort, if even noticeable, and is more related to overeating or eating too quickly, especially both food and liquids together.

Quick tips to help with Reflux:

• Positioning – as an antidote to baby lying down a lot. Have baby sit up for feeds, feed more slowly, whether breast or bottle. Sometimes a woman’s milk flow is fast and babies love to gulp milk, which can inevitably lead to – you know what!
• Keep baby elevated post feeds, so milk doesn’t get the chance to pool in baby’s still maturing little gut.
• Learn how to calm baby and yourself when baby gets agitated and upset with symptoms of discomfort.
• It will pass as baby grows.

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For more information and tips to help about reflux in babies, see article here at Australian Breastfeeding Association.
(Updated Jan 23 2024)

Don’t Forget that The Bowen Technique Therapy is available for Parents/ Adults too!

The Healing Practice
7 Albert St
Forest Lodge (Glebe)
NSW 2037.
By appointment only.