: What is cranial osteopathy? Some of our peers have recommended we take our 10 week old daughter to see a Cranial Osteopath, due to some sleeping issues and general crankiness. I've tried searching the web for an unbiased

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Below is a link to a more recent article than the one in my other post (2009). It is a study which found a significant association between an abnormal CRI in babies at 2 weeks of age and excessive crying at the age of 6 weeks. Measurements were taken by multiple physicians who were blind to each others' readings and blind to the infant's medical records and information about crying history as measured by the Ames Cry Score.

The study does not establish whether cranial osteopathic manipulation will correct abnormal CRI in infants, though it does cite other reports chronicling anecdotal evidence of reduction in crying following treatments. I have found studies of treatment efficacy in adults, but controlled studies on infants are more difficult to design.

Some pertinent excerpts from the study on infants:

Kotzampaltiris, P. V., Chou, K. J., Wall, S. P., & Crain, E. F. (2009). The Cranial Rhythmic Impulse and Excessive Crying of Infancy. Journal Of Alternative & Complementary Medicine, 15(4), 341-345.

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The following is not a recommendation one way or the other, but a sharing of information to help you make your own decision in this matter. This is a lay interpretation of the article cited below which is a review of research into cranial osteopathy, a practice that has not been proven to be beneficial but for which there are thousands of practitioners with satisfied patients worldwide.

The body has many rhythmic systems. The cranial rhythmic impulse (CRI) has a rate of 6-15 cycles per minute. It is slower than the heartbeat and asynchronous with breathing. Recent research suggests that CRI may be synchronous with the rhythms of fluctuations in arterial blood pressure (Traube-Hering-Mayer waves or THM). Currently, there is no mechanism for measuring CRI - it is done by hand. A skilled osteopath will have consistency in his own measurements, but there are variations from osteopath to osteopath which suggest some unreliability in measurement (and the need to find an experienced osteopath if you go this route).

The questions currently being asked of cranial osteopathy for which more research is needed are:

Can the CRI rhythms actually be measured reliably by hand?
Can the CRI rhythms be altered by gentle manipulation of the cranial and sacral bones?
Will such manipulation have a positive effect on the patient?

I received cranial osteopathic treatments as an adult. In the treatment I received, sometimes the osteopath would have her hands under my head as I lay on a table, and occasionally she worked in the roof of my mouth, around the occipital bones or underneath my hip bones. She applied a very gentle pressure. Her goal as I understood it was to even out this rhythm of movement of cerebrospinal fluid.

I found the procedure very calming, but I cannot say that it helped me medically - it may have contributed to an improvement in well-being, but other factors may have been responsible. I have met people who swear by it, especially for infants. I have not researched infant cranial osteopathy specifically. It is a common practice in some countries, and was covered by insurance where I lived at the time.

Ferguson, A. (2003) A review of the physiology of cranial osteopathy. Journal of Osteopathic Medicine 6(2):74-88.

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This is what Wikipedia had to say:

The evidence base for CST is sparse and a demonstrated biologically
plausible mechanism is lacking. In the absence of rigorous,
well-designed randomized controlled trials, it has been
characterized as pseudoscience, and its practice called
quackery.

Linked to two deaths

Relying on CST instead of effective treatment can be dangerous.
Moreover, its practice indicates poor judgement that may harm patients
in other ways. At least two deaths associated with craniosacral
therapy have been reported:

In 2003, a Pennsylvania chiropractor (Joann A. Gallagher) was convicted of insurance fraud in connection with the death of a
30-year-old epileptic woman whom she treated with cranial therapy.
Court documents indicated that the patient died of severe seizures
after following the chiropractor's advice to stop taking her
anticonvulsive medication. The fraud involved submitting insurance
claims falsely describing Upledger's "meningeal balancing" as spinal
manipulation [8].

In 2012, a Missouri dentist (Joseph H. Kerwin) had his license revoked for contributing to the death of a 2-day-old infant who had
been brought to him because of a high fever. Records in the case
indicate that instead of referring the parents to a medical facility,
he manipulated the child's skull and applied a vibrating machine to
his sacrum. The boy died 12 hours later, and the autopsy showed that
he died from complications of a subdual hematoma (a blood clot that
compressed his brain). The medical examiner concluded that the
hematoma could have been present at birth but was more likely caused
by the skull manipulation. The dental board concluded that Kerwin had
acted outside the scope of dentistry [9].