The institution warns about osteopathy sessions for infants which it considers “to have no proven scientific basis”.
- While osteopathy sessions for babies are on the rise, the Academy of Medicine points out that the effectiveness and safety of these practices have not been scientifically demonstrated.
- The institution therefore calls for avoiding advertising in maternity wards and for better monitoring of the undesirable effects of these practices on infants.
- As a reminder, the decree of March 25, 2007 prohibits “non-doctors” from handling children under 6 months of age, unless they have a medical certificate.
On social networks, advertisements in maternity wards, in medical offices or PMI centers, osteopathy for babies, which is not reimbursed by Health Insurance, is increasingly highlighted. These costly practices, described as “visceral and cranial”, are proposed and presented to parents as beneficial in relieving “ordinary symptoms”such as difficult feedings, night crying, constipation, colic, bloating, snoring, anxiety or ear infections. “They are made to believe that they risk missing out on something, that their child may have problems if they do not go to an osteopath”had declared, at FigaroPascale Mathieu, president of the National Order of Masseurs-Physiotherapists.
Osteopathy for babies, a practice “without proven scientific basis”
Issue : “the arguments used, intended to justify these practices, are based on assertions that are not or insufficiently supported by studies in compliance with current standards and by objective and scientific evaluations of their effectiveness and safety”, according to the Academy of Medicine. Faced with this observation, she calls the attention of health authorities and health professionals to the application of these osteopathic practices to newborns, “without proven scientific basis”, and efficiency and safety “not demonstrated”.
The institution also invites an objective evaluation of these practices with regard to the demands made. She “hopes, following the recommendations of the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs in its 2021 report, that the quality of training in these practices, provided by osteopathy training establishments approved in 2021, be strengthened and evaluated objectively by medical and surgical perinatal specialists and that monitoring of adverse effects of osteopathic practices in the newborn is put in place, in order to strengthen the safety of care for newborns.” Finally, she denounces advertisements promoting these osteopathic practices for babies in maternity wards.
“Non-doctors” cannot handle babies under 6 months without a medical certificate
“Let’s let babies grow up peacefully, let’s stop overmedicalizing healthy children with practices that have not been proven to work,” underlined Pascale Mathieu. As a reminder, osteopathy is not a medical discipline. The Ministry of Health specifies that the principle of this method “is to prevent or remedy functional disorders of the human body to the exclusion of organic pathologies which require therapeutic, medical, surgical, medicinal or physical intervention. Only musculoskeletal and myofascial manipulations, exclusively manual, external and non-forced are authorized by Decree No. 2007-435 of March 25, 2007 relating to the acts and conditions of practicing osteopathy.” Moreover, this decree prohibits “non-doctors” any handling of infants under six months and cervical manipulations without a medical certificate, according to the Federation of Doctors of France.
