Most common infant health concerns in osteopathic practices in Germany. A survey

In Germany, more parents have been seeking help from osteopaths for their infants and children in recent years. This implies an increasing demand of reliable evidence regarding the effectiveness of osteopathic intervention for this group.

To identify the 'typical' (most common) health concerns of parents when presenting their infants (age 0-12 months) in pediatric osteopathic practices.

For the purpose of this survey, well-trained osteopaths who specialize in the treatment of children and infants were selected. A documentation form containing a list of the likely most common infant health problems, developed by means of systematic literature analyses, was provided to experienced osteopaths to assess which health problems were seen most frequently.

Eighty-one osteopaths were contacted, of which 64 (79 %) responded and returned the documentation form. Nine documentation forms could not be evaluated. The remaining 55 documentation forms included information on 2833 health concerns. Quantitatively, there was no dominant health problem, but five problems were found to be common: 21 % of the cases were idiopathic infant asymmetry, 17 % were plagiocephaly, 16 % were excessive crying, and 14 % were feeding and sleep disorders. All other problems were observed as far less frequent. In addition, osteopaths reported 423 other health concerns that were not specified in the documentation form.

In this survey, infants that were presented in osteopathic practices often had one or more of those five health problems mentioned above. A large observational trial is currently underway to document changes observed during osteopathic treatment of these health problems.