What parts of the Possums programs offer evolutionary bodywork?

In evolutionary bodywork, the interaction between the whole of your body and the whole of your baby's body, is driven by purposeful intent by both your baby and yourself (e.g. to feed, to carry, to dial your baby down, to communicate to and fro, to grow joy). You are offering your baby bodywork in your physical interactions and sounds, minute by minute, hour by hour.

The following elements of the Possums programs are forms of evolutionary bodywork.

1. The gestalt method of fit and hold, for painfree and effective milk transfer. Evolutionary bodywork offers whole-of-ecosystem help for a breastfeeding mother and her baby. Any breastfeeding problems play out inside this single, physically connected (mouth-on-nipple) biological system, or during attempts to support this single, physically connected (mouth-on-nipple) biological system.

2. The NDC evolutionary bodywork approach to optimal infant motor development (eight steps) includes strategies which are hypothesised to prevent or repair of plagiocephaly and torticollis. You can find out more about the eight steps of the NDC approach to infant motor development here. Rich and diverse opportunities for motor development include

   • Symmetric and functional neuromotor patterns of movement and sucking

   • Sharing moments with your baby, building to and fro 'reciprocity chains' of parent-baby interaction (and social communication)

   • The fitting together of parents' and babies' bodies with carrying.

3. Frequent and flexible breastfeeds are a form of evolutionary bodywork, which

   • Protect a woman's capacity to produce enough milk to meet her baby's caloric needs, and

   • Protect an inflamed lactating breast if a breast inflammation arises. Frequent flexible breastfeeds can be conceptualised as the evolutionary bodywork approach to breast inflammation - at a time, unfortunately, when you might hear advice to not increase frequency of breastfeeds from an affected breast, or to use strategies such as therapeutic massage of lactation, which is unhelpful.

4. Bedsharing too can be thought of as a form of evolutionary bodywork, if you choose to do it. Possums adopts the latest findings of evolutionary anthropologists when discussing infant sleep position, place of sleep, proximity to an adult's body, and safety (considered in the Possums program Sleep safety: place + position).

Why the Possums programs are very different to what are sometimes labelled as 'extreme' parenting styles

Applying the Possums programs and evolutionary bodywork is not the same as what is sometimes (unkindly) referred to as 'extreme' parenting. If someone suggests that Possums is a kind of extreme parenting, they're not up-to-date with the latest neuroscience or evolutionary biology, or how this knowledge is being applied in the Possums programs to make life as easy as possible for families! (They're also being judgemental of other family's choices and styles!)

Evolutionary bodywork, drawing on the principles of traditional bodywork, understands that all parts of the body are connected. Evolutionary bodywork is concerned with functional connectivity. Evolutionary bodywork offers the kind of physical treatment which helps the whole of that single biological ecosystem, for instance, of the breastfeeding mother and her baby, heal, self-organise, and flourish.

Acknowledgements

I acknowledge Isabelle Coffey RN IBCLC NDC Accredited Practitioner who coined the term 'evolutionary bodywork' during one of our NDC Live Network Hours. At the time I had written and spoken about holistic bodywork, whole-of-system bodywork, and the NDC evolutionary approach to bodywork. Isabelle suggested simply calling the Possums or NDC approach to motor development 'evolutionary bodywork'. With her consent, I've gone on to use this term in the Possums programs.

Recommended resources

• You can find out the main differences between traditional bodywork therapy and Possums' evolutionary bodywork here.

• You can find out about the NDC evolutionary bodywork approach to optimising your baby's motor development here.

• You can find out about why it's best to think of you and your baby as a single biological system here.

• You can find out how evolutionary bodywork helps repair breastfeeding problems here.

• You can find out about the eight steps of the NDC evolutionary bodywork approach to protecting a baby's motor development here.