Birth and Its Mechanisms

of Injury

This course teaches you about birth and its complications. It features video from a previously recorded webinar with Dr. Dustin Costescu, Ob-Gyn from Hamilton Health Sciences.

Enhance your health screening questions & birth history. Fine-tune your assessments & treatments. Start feeling a sense of ease when seeing paediatric patients because you'll understand the mechanisms of injury. Get better results by taking this course! A sample birth history and intake form are included.

3 hours of con-ed learning

Course Instructor, Outline and Objectives:

  • Joanne Lynne is the course instructor/developer and content creator for this course. Her accreditations are a Masters of Osteopathic Manipulative Sciences (MOMSc.) a certificate in Pediatric Craniosacral Therapy, and BSc. in Physics. She has studied Pediatric Osteopathy under Dr. Jonathan Evans, D.O. (Australia).
  • Dr. Dustin Costescu is a Medical Doctor specializing in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Hamilton Health Sciences and is Associate Professor at MacMaster University.
  • To understand the areas of the female bony pelvis that allow passage for the fetus. To explain the cervical and uterine behaviours during labour and delivery.
  • To learn the "normal birth" and its associated natural forces.
  • To detail and describe what the forces are, in which directions they act, and how they affect the fetus' body, namely the heart rate/vagal tone. 
  • To learn the complications that arise during birth, why and when they happen, including malpositions and malpresentations.
  • To learn about the following medical interventions: extractions and surgery.
    1. External Cephalic Versions
    2. Forceps procedures
    3. Vacuum procedures
    4. Cesarean sections
  • To learn why medical interventions become necessary and understand how doctors opt for their use.
  • To understand the more common types of birth injuries and their degrees of severity.

Learn more with my guest Dr. Dustin Costescu Ob-Gyn

The video sections from my guest speaker help bring the learning experience together as he explains real experiences, breathing life into factual textbook material. The concepts presented in this course are mostly generalized to please a spectrum of allied health professionals. Osteopathic manual therapists study how forces affect the body and this course is geared slightly toward those concepts.

Relevant Anatomy

The anatomy in this course focuses on the maternal pelvis in relation to the fetal lie and how the fetus presents to the pelvis during labour and delivery. The compressive, contractile and resistive forces are explained to give the learner a proper frame-of-reference for resulting birth trauma. Forces from medical interventions are taught with ease and clarity.

Treatment Principles

Osteopathic treatment principles are threaded throughout this course. Just as important, principles of thought related to what you do as a manual osteopath in relation to the baby's birth injuries are explained. The mystery of the birth process disappears and your role as an OMP becomes a lot easier with this course.