ļ»æEpisode 67 - Osteopathy for babies with Reena Murray
Mel:
[0:00] Welcome to the Great Birth Rebellion podcast. I'm your host,
Mel:
[0:03] Dr. Melanie Jackson. I'm a clinical and research midwife with my PhD. And each episode, I cast a critical eye over current maternity care practice by grappling with research and historical knowledge to help you get the best out of your pregnancy, birth, and postpartum journey.
Mel:
[0:23] Welcome everybody to this week's episode of the Great Birth Rebellion. And I'm here with a very special woman. Her name is Reena Murray and actually we were very very good friends at school and Reena ended up becoming an osteopath among many other things. Reena was also my maid of honor at my wedding. I know. Anyway that's our initial connection but Reena's also an awesome osteopath and has been for a long time and I know we've done episodes on osteopathy before on this podcast, but we have not covered osteopathy for babies. And Reena had some special qualifications in pediatric osteopathy. And so I wanted to invite her on today specifically to talk about osteopathy for babies. I personally had both of our kids almost from their second week of life having regular osteopathy adjustments and I feel like it's a it's not medicine it's like maintenance I feel like it's like exercising is going and just being adjusted or making sure you're aligned physically so anyway that's my investment in this is that I've used it I believe in it and Reena's one of the experts so I want to introduce Reena Murray uh Reena Welcome to the podcast.
Reena:
[1:46] Thank you, Mel.
Mel:
[1:47] Can you give us a bit of an intro to yourself just so we can get to know who you are?
Reena:
[1:51] Sure. Well, first up, I'm a mom of two. I am an osteopath. I also am what we call an advanced pediatric osteopath. So I just hold an additional title in the area of pediatrics. And I'm also an IBCLC, lactation consultant. Yeah.
Mel:
[2:11] Yeah. And your clinic, you've got a clinic in Camden called Completely Aligned. We'll put all the details in the show notes.
Mel:
[2:19] You've got a few other osteopaths working with you. So if you could talk to us about firstly what osteopathy is, and we kind of again already had a bit of an idea in our previous episodes that it's a very broad definition of what an osteopath is, and then give us a bit of an understanding about what it means to be a pediatric osteopath.
Reena:
[2:41] Sure. I was thinking about this question and I thought after 20 years, I should have a good definition of what osteopathy is, but I really struggled. So I will do my best. I think osteopathy is a holistic form of healthcare. We focus on the relationship between the body structure and the function. And so we are trying to kind of improve or restore or help the body kind of find its way back to healing. And we do that through mostly hands-on techniques. And I think our approach is integrative so we're looking at the whole person and then when we're dealing with mums and babies that just adds a whole other layer because we've got two people to try and work on and I think that's what I love about paediatric osteopathy is the I think the complexity of trying to figure out what's going on with a dyad but also knowing that when you can help the dyad you help the whole family and I think that's really rewarding so to answer your question whether it's pediatric osteopathy it's just us dealing with kids and that ranges from you know naught to 18. My area of expertise lies in the infant and kind of early childhood period that's what my post-grad qualification is in and so we just see lots of babies in my practice.
Mel:
[3:54] And there's a real understanding that the body has an ability to heal itself and recover given the right ingredients. So, you know, if there's something that you can correct in order to facilitate the body to do its own healing, that's the idea behind these kinds of modalities.
Reena:
[4:13] Correct. So less about what we do to people and how we actually support their body to do what it needs to do, yeah, to repair itself. And I think that's really important in babies because we're dealing with these tiny little human beings. They need really gentle care, but sometimes they just pointing in the right
Reena:
[4:29] direction and their body gets going. Yeah.
Mel:
[4:31] And I do also want to mention that osteopathy is quite different to things like chiropractic work and physiotherapy. So although they're physical therapies, physiotherapy is kind of more recognized medically as a manual therapy. Chiropractors, I feel like they sit in the middle and then osteopaths, I do feel like they have a reputation for being very alternative. But you guys are heavily qualified. It's years and years and years. It's a proper degree. It's not quackery. It's really scientific.
Reena:
[5:07] Yes, it is. I mean, I've got three degrees to my name and six years at uni. Yeah. I think we're poorly understood in terms of our expertise and our qualifications. But I would say, yes, we are very scientific and evidence-based and we use that to inform how we treat it. But it's how we treat, I think, that is quite different. And if you saw me as an adult, I would treat you quite differently to how I might treat, you know, a one-week-old baby. So, yeah, it's a very complex situation. Approach.
Mel:
[5:39] Yeah. And I think every osteopath is different. I've actually got two osteopaths at my disposal and I will pick and choose which one I want to go to depending on what I feel like I need. So if you go to one osteopath, don't assume they're going to do the same thing as the other one. It's worth really quizzing them.
Reena:
[5:56] Yeah, no, I think that's true. I also think as an osteo, we can tailor our treatment approach to the patient as well. So if you're fortunate enough to have two osteos in your area who are amazing and you can see them for different things that's great but for those of you who are a bit more regional and that's not an option if their treatment approach isn't working for you we we are trained in direct and indirect approaches which means we can go firm or we can go really gentle and so sometimes it's a matter of just having that conversation that says hey that was a bit too much for my body it was a bit hard can we go a bit softer and you'll usually find the practitioners very open to that so yeah you don't always have to have two but sometimes you need a conversation to say that's not working for me can we try a different way yeah great advice yeah do.
Mel:
[6:39] All osteopaths know how to work with small babies
Reena:
[6:43] No that's a really hard question to answer because it's been quite some time since i've been at university um every university has kind of got different levels of training in pediatrics but largely i would say university graduates don't come out with um all the skills that they need to treat pediatrics yeah so yeah you need to look around for someone who's got either training like myself where I've done you know tertiary education and received an advanced qualification or there are other people who've done kind of a vocational pathway where they've done a lot of you know 20 years of ongoing professional development in peds and so whilst not formally recognized they're very experienced.
Mel:
[7:21] Yeah so what about gauging their comfort level when I talk to my clients about seeking out an osteopath to help them with their baby I always to ask them to ask the osteopath are you comfortable with treating babies rather than saying like what's your qualification is what's your comfort level you know do you do this often and and an osteopath will tell you actually that's not my area of expertise it's not anything that I've trained in I have no interest and then you know not to send your baby then uh yeah yeah
Reena:
[7:56] A hundred percent. I think that's exactly what we would do. So my first question would be, do you treat babies and children? Yes or no? If they say yes, I would then ask, you know, what kind of conditions do they commonly treat? And then you get a pretty good sense of, okay, they're across this. They know all the things that pediatric osteopaths would work on. And then if not, we're pretty good at referring. There's not that many of us. We know everyone in our local area or greater local area. And so you'll find most of them would be happy to say, yep, Go and see such and such, you know, in the next suburb. They're really great with kids.
Mel:
[8:28] Yeah, great. Awesome.
Mel:
[8:31] So what kinds of things do parents come to you with for their babies that you see often or that you find osteopathies helpful for?
Reena:
[8:43] Yeah, I think there's lots of things that we can help with, but I think the general public don't necessarily know that. The main things that people come to me for would be, I'd say, plagiocephaly and torticollis. So, you know, babies with flat heads.
Mel:
[8:57] Yep.
Reena:
[8:58] That's a big one. We also see hip dysplasia. We would see a lot of feeding difficulties. I might be a little bit skewed in my presentation on that because I'm also a lactation consultant, so we probably see a larger volume than perhaps your average osteoclinic. We also see things like talipes, strains through the neck, brachial plexus injury, so like neuromuscular skeletal things.
Mel:
[9:24] Motor delay, like babies who have had shoulder dystocia or complex births or sex. And the talipes for those playing at home are basically positional foot thing that can often easily be corrected most of the time. So this is something that you could see an osteopath for, yeah.
Reena:
[9:42] Yeah, absolutely. And often something we just see incidentally when we're looking at other things. And so we'll, you know, quickly work on that and then give the parents a few exercises. Yeah.
Mel:
[9:52] Yeah.
Reena:
[9:53] And tongue cast. That's the other big one.
Mel:
[9:56] Yes. And the other reasons that I send my clients, I mean, I think every baby, almost like when I tell women after your birth, every woman should see a physiotherapist, pelvic floor physiotherapist. I think every baby should see an osteopath. But some of the reasons why I suggest that my clients see an osteo would be to help with breastfeeding issues. So sometimes babies will favour one breast over the other and sometimes it's about the breast, just they're getting used to the fact that they need to feed differently off one than another if there's size or nipple differences. But sometimes they actually have trouble turning one way or the other or lying
Mel:
[10:41] one way or the other based on an imbalance in their body. So any time a baby's favouring one breast or the other, I will always recommend an adjustment. Just generally unsettled babies. I'm like, if your baby's trying to tell you something, if we can't work it out, I reckon an osteopath would be an amazing option. The other reason I send people is for things like reflux or sometimes a gassy baby can be helped. And as you already said, babies with birth injuries can really benefit. And maybe even a breech baby that's been sitting not head down for most of the pregnancy, could really use some body work.
Reena:
[11:24] All of those things, absolutely. Yes. Yeah, I think intrauterine lie, and I would say this is anecdotal, but definitely those first babies who are head down for a while, we often see that in terms of that neck preference or that side bending one way where they just can't look to the other direction and they have trouble on the breast, that's a really common presentation. Yeah. Yeah, that one we see all the time. So definitely be something for those.
Mel:
[11:50] Yeah, for sure. and really long and difficult labours where the baby's been quite compressed in the pelvis for a while I think yeah just everyone at least one adjustment to start them off so if any of those things are striking you as something that your baby's dealing with there's often no medical answers for these things well can you talk us through what you would do for a baby I know this is as broad as what is an osteopath, but what will you actually do to the baby when a parent brings their baby in?
Reena:
[12:25] Yeah, sure. That's a good one. It depends on age and what they're presenting for. But at least in my practice, we do a full assessment. So we'll do a full breastfeeding assessment as well as osteoassessment because I'm fortunate enough to have three osteo IBCLCs in my practice as well as another IBCLC. So we are quite comprehensive in our initial assessment because we cannot really determine where the issues lie until we look at both the mum and baby feeding and then physically assess the baby. But if we talked about, say, if we were concerned about reflux, maybe, can I use that as a scenario? Yeah, I can see that. Yeah, I mean, there's a couple of things. We're obviously going to address some feeding strategies if we can. Interestingly, the latest research is showing that medication is not so beneficial. And so we really do need strategies to help these families who are really struggling. This is where some of the research in tongue ties is emerging. And there's some good evidence to suggest that up to 50% of babies are with reflux. It's actually air-induced due to poor latch and seal. So if there is a tongue tie present and we've got reflux symptoms, then we need to address that. There's a good chance that we can improve things just by addressing that.
Reena:
[13:43] But osteopathically, we're going to assess the baby. So we're going to feel, you know, what does the baby feel like? What's their tone like? Are they hypertonic? So are they tight or are they a bit floppy? Do they have a preference, as you said? Do they look one way? Can they not turn to the other direction? So we're going to look at their primitive reflexes, so doing a neuromusculoskeletal assessment basically. And then we're definitely going to palpate them. So we're going to have a feel at how their whole body is working. Our hands, that probably is the difference between us and perhaps some of the other professions is we spend a long time developing our sense of touch and it comes in very handy with babies who cannot talk to you and give you feedback, but they're very good at wriggling under your fingers and showing you when they're uncomfortable or when they're comfortable. And so we get a lot of information from the baby without needing to actually have a conversation with them.
Reena:
[14:37] But for a baby who's got reflux, we're definitely looking at the vagus nerve. So when the baby, it depends again back to the birth, we like to come back to the birth a bit, but if there's kind of compression at the base of the skull, if it's been quite a difficult or traumatic birth, sometimes the nerve that comes out of the base there that supplies the stomach gets a bit irritated or it might have some kind of compression on it. And so it's either hyperactive or it's not as active as it needs to be. Our job is to kind of remove the pressure on that nerve and kind of calm everything down so that the system can work optimally. So maybe it's hyperactive and it's causing the baby to vomit and be very upset or perhaps it's not active enough and so their gut is not working the way it should and they're not able to pass a bowel movement, for example, or they're going too frequently. So our job is really working with the autonomic nervous system and trying to balance it back out and tell it just to kind of calm down, yeah, all the little systems to work in sync together.
Mel:
[15:42] And you guys really look at the bony structures, the muscular structures, the nervous structures, the fascia, you know, the fluid movement. Like it's so holistic. It's not like you're just checking bones, just checking muscles. It's every little moving part that's involved in each system gets a look in.
Reena:
[16:04] Yes.
Mel:
[16:06] Yeah. And when you would adjust a baby, what does that look like? Because, I mean, you know, there's been some frightening internet videos of people doing, you know, things with babies and aggressively. That's not been my experience of osteopathy. It almost looks as though nothing is happening when a baby's been adjusted. But what are you doing?
Reena:
[16:34] Yeah, that term adjustment, I find I don't use it in... Right? Yeah, because I think it has been... Yes, linked with, I suppose, aggressive manipulation, and that is actually contraindicated in children. It shouldn't, particularly up to 12 years of age, the evidence is showing. So I know our professional body, you know, recommends no manipulation up to 12 years of age. So when you see an osteopath, there'll be none of that forceful cracking or adjustment. It generally is very gentle. And that, I think in the beginning I said to you, we have lots of ways we can work. We can work with indirect or into ease, so where the baby is happy and comfortable and where the tissues want to go, or we can work directly and engage those barriers. What you have seen and probably how most of us work with paediatrics and definitely little babies, we're going with ease. So we're working with where the baby is most comfortable. And it's kind of like, it's really hard to explain, but maybe like a spring that you kind of compress down and then you let that spring kind of let go on its own. And so we are trying to unwind a lot of the connective tissue that's kind of holding that baby in a certain position. But we allow the baby to kind of reorganize itself rather than us forcing it to where it needs to go.
Mel:
[17:51] Yes.
Reena:
[17:52] And we can do that in babies because they really are very soft. It's all membrane. The bones are soft. And we're working with, yeah, a lot of fascia and connective tissue and just trying to support that.
Mel:
[18:03] Yeah, and that's been my experience when even for my own adjustments, I'll go to the osteo and basically ask, when do I need to see you again? She's like, no, no, your body will do the work throughout the week now. You let me know how you feel. You know, she almost won't let me book in again until the treatment has done its thing all on its own. And that's something I find extraordinary too, is that the treatment can have an impact over time. And it's not like this repetitive comeback every single week recovery process.
Reena:
[18:41] Yeah, and that's what's great about treating kids and babies particularly. They can't lie. And so you see very quickly after a treatment how they respond. And usually parents will say to us, oh, they slept, you know, after a consult. It's very common. And, you know, treatment results don't always last indefinitely that, you know, people do need to come back depending on what we're working on. But it's usually very clear in a baby how they respond and then when they need to come back.
Mel:
[19:08] Yes, that's been my experience too. whenever the kids had a treatment that they have the most amazing long sleep afterwards and that tells you a lot because your body does a lot of healing while it's sleeping yep I wanted to ask you I can't I can't tell you what the name is right now but the flathead thing what's that called
Reena:
[19:27] Plagiocephaly or brachiocephaly.
Mel:
[19:29] Plagiocephaly or brachiocephaly super common I intentionally I I mean, we did a lot of attachment parenting with our kids, so a lot of baby wearing, not a lot of kind of lying flat on their backs and doing all kinds of things like that. But what causes that? What causes the flatheads?
Reena:
[19:48] Oh, boy.
Mel:
[19:50] We do get controversial on this podcast. No one's going to hate you for saying it.
Reena:
[19:56] No, no, no. This is a big passion of mine because one of my own children had a very severe plagiocephaly and everything I possibly could and he still didn't I just couldn't fix it and so I have spent the last decade trying to figure out the best way to treat this not like yeah.
Mel:
[20:14] Okay so you've got personal experience I've touched a nerve I didn't know that was your excuse um but I'm curious about it because yeah I mean it's not uncommon and and I have not yet heard of other than osteopathy medical management of it seems really bizarre to me.
Reena:
[20:33] Yeah. Yeah, super common. There's definitely evidence that suggests that the back to sleep campaign is linked with increasing incidence of flathead syndrome or plagiocephaly. Yeah.
Mel:
[20:45] So that's basically the encouragement to put your baby to sleep on their back.
Reena:
[20:51] Correct. That seems to have had the single biggest impact over, you know, decades. AIDS. I think what we see definitely as osteos is often, it's not the only reason, you know, intrauterine lie can do it. If you've got multiples, you know, there's not a lot of room in there. One baby might get stuck wedged down the side and they come out with a bit of a flat head. That's definitely, you know, primary plagiocephaly where they're born with it. But the other type that we see more commonly would be a positional plagiocephaly or a secondary one where they've had perhaps a bit of discomfort or tension through their neck, preference to turn only one direction, and they spend the first six to eight weeks of their life only looking one direction. And then we start to see that slightening develop as the head circumference starts to grow quite quickly. And so through that kind of rapid growth phase between two and four months, it kind of gets worse unless there's intervention. And it's able to be treated generally.
Mel:
[21:47] So is it like a physical compaction of one side and it just starts to create that shape?
Reena:
[21:53] Yeah, because the bone is being developed inside the membrane. And if the membrane or the outer casing is tight, the bone can only go where those tissues are telling it to go. And so it flattens.
Mel:
[22:07] Well, if you didn't see an osteopath for this, what is mainstream medicine doing for people?
Reena:
[22:14] Not a lot. Positional advice would be, you know, rotate the baby in their cot or in their bassinet, baby wearing, so carrying them as much as you can to keep them off that spot, and then maybe some stretches, which I find are not that easy for parents to do because they don't understand how far they can push, you know, that stretch without irritating their baby. Yeah.
Mel:
[22:37] Yeah. And what do you do for them? What would an osteopath do for them?
Reena:
[22:43] So I think we do lots of things. I actually worked with a neurosurgeon in a plagiocephaly clinic. So I got to see, yeah, the full, as part of a team, and we had orthotists there who were putting helmets on severe babies. So I think I've seen the full spectrum of how they're managed. We personally do a lot of measurements. So we track their growth over time to make sure that things are improving. And if they're not, we'll be referring for imaging or for a second opinion. But generally, we will work hands-on on their body, trying to work through the whole body, but definitely the neck, to get rid of any of those strain patterns that might be there that are stopping that baby from freedom of movement. And then we'll do a lot of positional advice. We'll also do exercise advice with the parents, but modify it according to their ability. And kind of give them a range of options and definitely monitor through that really, as I said, that rapid growth phase. Yeah.
Mel:
[23:40] Yes. I have one more question to ask. Are there any risks to having an osteopathic treatment for your baby?
Reena:
[23:49] Good one. No, not that I can think of. So long as the osteopath is practising A, within their scope and I think, as I said, you know, being mindful of those contraindications. So definitely, as I said, we don't manipulate. I think that's probably the biggest risk factor we have. But I think it's also, really important to know what you don't know. And so this is where your question about, you know, can every osteopath see pediatrics? I think a lot of osteopaths do treat pediatrics, but the challenge in treating them is not so much the hands-on work. We're all very skilled, hands-on manual therapists. It's actually in understanding the uniqueness of presentations in babies and children. And so it's that knowledge that's important so that they're not missing anything, I suppose, when it comes to is it safe or not.
Mel:
[24:40] Yeah. So there's not an inherent danger with caring for babies.
Reena:
[24:44] No.
Mel:
[24:46] And is there anything that parents can do on a day-to-day basis for their baby's bodies? Yeah. You know, if they want to not see an osteopath, how can they look after their baby's bodies on a day-to-day to keep them as healthy and aligned as possible for good function?
Reena:
[25:06] Yeah, that's a good question.
Mel:
[25:07] I just sprung this question on you that wasn't on the list, but it just occurred to me, you know, perhaps there's things we could be doing for our babies.
Reena:
[25:14] Sure. Okay. I think a few things. I think hold your babies, like therapeutic touch. That would be a big one. you know don't leave them lying down on their back babies need to experience lots of different, surfaces and textures and and different positions so yeah a baby that is lying on their back all day long usually we'll see perhaps is a little bit delayed in their gross motor development because they're just not they just don't know how to use their body in space so hold them give them different surfaces and textures to interact with play with them the more you play with them you can actually help teach their little nervous system and muscles how to do what they need to do by playing. So for example, one of the common things we see is babies who are just not rolling. For numerous reasons, maybe they're tight, maybe they're just not actually able to go one side, which is where we will treat. And usually you can see good results quite quickly. And so we just teach parents, play with them. Every nappy change, we want you to roll them both directions because you're starting to lay down that, I suppose, that pathway for the brain and the nerves and the muscles to connect to go, oh, that's how I move my body this way, so I do this. So parents can, yeah, do a lot of tactile stuff and just play-based stuff for their babies to help them develop their neuromuscular system.
Mel:
[26:37] Awesome. And I had a question too. All the questions now are coming up. But I remember learning about the importance of a good crawl for a baby where they're actually, their hands and legs are moving in a particular pattern.
Reena:
[26:52] Yeah.
Mel:
[26:53] You know, as opposed to a bum shuffle or, you know, skipping crawling altogether. What do you know about the importance of crawling for toddlers?
Reena:
[27:05] Yeah. So you're talking about basically developing that cross patterning across the midline. It is important for sure. I think I want to be a little careful because some babies do skip certain developmental stages and they are okay. Some babies do and older children do struggle because, yes, they have skipped that phase. And so you'll find a lot of practitioners who will work on retained primitive reflexes and they'll work on basically getting you to crawl as a five-year-old to kind of teach the brain how to move the body in that way. So that's what I like about being in osteo is I get to monitor these babies throughout their early development. And if I pick up on those things early on and we work on them and then we move through to the next stage, yeah, it's a little tricky. Sometimes they get missed, but it's not impossible. You can work on them later and you can integrate them.
Mel:
[27:59] Amazing. Yes, that's really helpful. I mean, that's all the questions I have today about osteopathy for babies. And I suppose I wanted to introduce our listeners to this idea because, you know, if you've got an issue with your baby, often for parents, the first stop, if they don't have a midwife early on or they're not well connected with early childhood services, for example, the community childhood services, every other option is like a GP for babies. And they're not really ā€“ they're trained in medicine, not necessarily in health and welfare. If you feel like there's something not quite right with your baby, but medically they're checking out just fine, I would really, I think next step would be an osteopath for me personally.
Reena:
[28:47] Yeah, I think that's probably a good way to look at it. I mean, we are there to complement your GP, your pediatrician. We are highly skilled. We can do that and we can handle a lot of things for you, but we also work really closely or at least I do with lots of health professionals to try to get the best outcome. For babies, but I think parents are really, they're really good at understanding their baby. And if something's not quite right, but not pathological, not medical, but still not sitting well with them, then yes, I think we're often a great place to come and kind of get that little bit of support and treatment. And then perhaps we might move you on to, you know, another service if we think it's necessary, but yeah, just part of your team.
Mel:
[29:28] Yeah, that's right. Part of the team. And I think, you know, there's been times where I thought maybe my child had an ear infection, for example. Maybe the first stop should have been the GP, but the first stop for us was the osteopath. She's like, yeah, I think maybe there is. She was able to look in their ears. She gave this amazing adjustment to one of our kids, and I literally put him in the car in his car seat afterwards, and so much mucus came out of his face, like pouring out. And by the time we got home he was a different child like you could tell that he was so uncomfortable from this congestion and it was bothering his ears but obviously also his sinuses and after the adjustment which again looked like nothing to me from the outside he just had this huge response and I just thought forget it I'm not seeing anybody else ever again and then she went on maternity leave for my second and I was like no what am I gonna do I don't have any other resources but yes that's what I wanted to share with our listeners today was just to dip the toe to understand what's possible with osteopathy and is there anything else that you wanted to offer today Reina?
Reena:
[30:43] I think we've covered most of it yeah I think I probably would say, you know we talked about reflux and unsettledness and gassy babies I think they're all things we can help with but sometimes we need a multidisciplinary approach so if you're not fortunate enough that your osteopath is also an IBCLC like myself that's fine often they'll have an IBCLC they work with and so between the two of them they can kind of cover both bases because as I said to you it's usually quite complex it's often not just one thing or you know just a little bit of irritation on the vagus nerve for example often you need to address the feeding issues and perhaps improve you know change some of the things with breastfeeding to improve the gastric function as well.
Mel:
[31:28] Amazing. Beautiful. That's a wrap for today. Osteopathy for babies.
Mel:
[31:33] Reena's actually coming back next week. We're going to talk about a very controversial topic, which is brand new for us here at the Great Birth Rebellion. We don't normally dabble in controversy, but we're going to. We're going to talk about tongue tie, which I've seen change. I've been a midwife for nearly 16 years now when I first started midwifery there was the very occasional baby that would be diagnosed with tongue tie and it was usually the more severe ones that it was blatantly obvious and then the rest just coasted on through without being diagnosed now it feels like every third baby has a tongue tie so Rena is going to talk because she's a lactation consultant and also an osteopath who specializes in babies.
Mel:
[32:22] She's the perfect professional to get us started on the tongue tie conversation. It's only a piece of the tongue tie conversation. We're not going to propose that we have all the information for you. And even for me as a midwife, my understanding is fairly limited to the point of kind of like being able to just refer people with tongue ties onto the next person. So we're offering a few pieces of the puzzle with the tongue tie conversation. That's for next week. So we will see you next week. To get access to the resources for each podcast episode, join the mailing list at melaniethemidwife.com. And to support the work of this podcast, wear the rebellion in the form of clothing and other merch at thegreatbirthrebellion.com. Follow me, Mel, @Melaniethemidwife on socials and the show @thegreatbirth rebellion all the details are in the show notes
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