UNDERSTANDING HOW BIRTH AFFECTS YOUR BABY - FIRST UP, THE C SECTION 'LITTLE FROG'

We had the pleasure of meeting Christian Bates at The Mum Marketplace Awards, where we were blown away by what he had to say.

An Osteopath & Naturopath by trade, Christian has worked for over 26 years with babies (and their families) and has coined these amazing 'Baby Birth Types' based on his years of experience. When we heard him talk through some of these birth types, we couldn't believe the accuracy across all 4 of our children, and how their birth style related to their individual demeanour as babies.

Christian has kindly agreed to write us a series of blogs for us, shedding some light on these Birth Types and we are fairly sure that they will resonate with you as much as they did with us.

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What’s a Baby Birth Type?

A Baby Birth Type is the term I have created to describe the many types of colicky, crying, upset, not sleeping babies I see. I have named these babies according to “patterns” they commonly fall in that I have recognised and researched over the last 26 years of being an osteopath and naturopath. 

Lets start with the Little Frog - which is generally a baby borth via a very fast vaginal delivery or via c section.

“Curls in a little ball baby and hates laying on their back baby”

So many parents nick name their baby a “Little Frog”. These babies have their knees up all the time and want to be on your shoulder with their knees tucked up and under. If you put them on their back their legs come up and can even drop to the side so they often prefer to lay on their side. And because of this they can hate laying on their back. They might however be happy laying in their car seat though as this puts them back into the Little Frog position. 

When the baby is in their mothers womb they are curled up in this frog position, or foetal position. The delivery process down the birth canal actually stretches them out. However, if the delivery was very fast (usually a second or third baby) or was a planned or elective C-section then the baby doesn’t get stretched out so they stay in a little ball. They get taken out and then they ping back into the foetal position. 

Babies who have the little frog position with their knees up tight can have tummy issues. They can be windy, constipated and reflux. (Side note here, if your baby is also an Antibiotic Baby BirthType then they most likely have lots of watery poo’s and aren’t constipated - this type is covered in another blog post here).

Can you picture that when you feed your baby and their tummy gets full of milk and then they bring their knees up tight all that milk gets squashed into a smaller area? The milk just doesn’t comfortably pass down and through their tummy into the rest of their digestive system easily. It might even reflux out literally due to being pushed out by the babies legs coming up.

Also if there are other factors causing your baby to create lots of wind (such as antibiotics) then this will become easily trapped if their knees are being pulled right up. This could give them colicky wind pain.

This is a principle of osteopathy; how our physical structure affects how we function. In this case a baby being curled into a “little frog”, causes wind to be trapped and to give colic pain. 

Let me be clear this ISN’T the only cause of colic or reflux. There are many more and it helps to understand each to then help your baby. After all if the was one magic cure for colic everyone would no and there would be no colicky babies! 

I personally use the extremely gentle cranial osteopathy to release these “Little Frogs” so their legs ease out flatter helping them be more comfortable laying on their back. The treatment also works on another level by being calming into the baby’s nervous system which is another route to helping them relax and improving colic as a relaxed nervous system assists digestion.

In the next blog I talk about the Little Meerkat Baby BirthType which is the “strong neck baby” - read all about that here.

You can find videos about the Baby BirthTypes, more baby help and Christian's ebook on his website www.calmingcolic.com and his instagram.