Craniosacral therapy for mothers, babies, and practitioners
Interview with Meaghan Beames
I chat with Meaghan Beames from Beames CST. Together we discuss craniosacral therapy, its benefits for babies, and Meaghan’s journey as a solopreneur expanding her practice. At the core of this conversation, we explore how Meaghan’s work enables doulas and midwives to offer infant CST directly to their clients.
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About Meaghan
Meaghan founded the Beames CST Training Centre to provide specialized learning for health professionals worldwide. Her mission is to ensure North American families have access to qualified craniosacral therapists to help babies with colic, latching, and early-life challenges. In 5 years, she’s treated 700+ babies, taught over 100 health professionals CST, and built a thriving Toronto practice with multiple practitioners. Her expertise includes both bodywork and business growth. She also hosts "The MyBaby Craniosacral Podcast" with over 60 episodes and 7,000 downloads.
Reach out to Meaghan here: http://www.beamescst.com
We explore the following questions:
What is craniosacral therapy, and how does it work as a gentle, hands-on healing modality?
How can craniosacral therapy help babies and mothers, particularly after birth trauma or stress?
Why is craniosacral therapy especially effective for addressing issues like reflux, feeding difficulties, and tension in babies?
What inspired you to transition from being a massage therapist to focusing on craniosacral therapy, specifically for babies?
How do you balance the physical demands of teaching craniosacral therapy with running a practice and raising children?
How did the COVID-19 pandemic shape your approach to training and teaching craniosacral therapy, especially online?
Is it possible to effectively learn and teach such a manual and hands-on therapy online, and how do you approach this?
Why is it important to address common misconceptions about gentle healing modalities like craniosacral therapy?
What advice would you give to parents who want to learn craniosacral therapy to support their own children?
How do you plan to expand your business globally, and what role does international training play in your future goals?
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Transcript
Julia Jones:
Hello and welcome to the Newborn Mothers Podcast. Today I've invited Meaghan Beames on the podcast. She is a craniosacral therapist and also a trainer, and provides training to all kinds of people from mums to doulas, to people who want to be full craniosacral therapists. Today we're just having a little chat, a little bit about craniosacral therapy because there are probably a lot of people who don't know what it is, but also a bit about starting a business as a solopreneur and planning to expand that business. And, yeah, I mean, all of it. I want to hear all of it.
Meaghan Beames:
Absolutely. I'm here for all of it.
Julia Jones:
Good, good, good. How are you today?
Meaghan Beames:
I'm excellent. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to get this information out to people in Australia. I don't know how many craniosacral therapists there are there.
Julia Jones:
I don't know what other countries are like, but I think it's probably fairly common here compared to other places. I know that I have students who've studied craniosacral therapy with Australian people because they don't have it in their own country. So we must have a bit of it going on here.
Meaghan Beames:
Yeah. I would also believe that there are lots of people who don't know about craniosacral therapy.
Julia Jones:
Definitely. It's still not a mainstream common thing. So do you want to start by explaining what it is?
Meaghan Beames:
Absolutely. So craniosacral therapy, even though it's a really long word, it's actually quite basic in what we do, in that we are doing manual therapy. So it's, it's a hands-on modality, and it's very, very gentle. So we use just five grammes of pressure to feel through the body to see what's tight, what's either moving but not moving. Right. So if it's not moving well, some areas of the body might not be moving. Well, usually those areas are areas that we need to move well in order to function well. So we tap into these areas of tightness, we release them so that the body just functions better. so that's essentially what cranio therapy is, is just gentle hands-on healing modality. So we don't do the healing. What we do is we encourage the body, or we allow the body to be seen, and then it is encouraged to heal itself.
So it's kind of got its roots in osteopathic, manual therapy. But it focuses mainly on fascia rather than the joints, and alignment and that type of thing. So it could be used by anyone essentially, depending on where you live, where you work. I'm from Canada. In Canada we don't need to have a licence to touch, but other countries or states or that type of thing, you have to be a licenced practitioner, and have a licence to touch bodies before you can do it. But I don't know if Australia really has that. Craniosacral is not really regulated in a lot of places, which has its ups and downs, but its up is that pretty much anyone can use it.
And craniosacral is fantastic for anyone who's had a traumatic experience, surgeries, accidents, maybe they fell from their bike when they were five and, and that is still living in their body. Craniosacral is fantastic for people who have high stress situations, so they don't know how to relax. It really taps into that nervous system to help bring them down from that high stress situation, so that they can get to know what it feels like to actually be in a lower state. Rather than that activated state. We're down lower into our rest and digest. Yeah. So it's very gentle, in its modality to just help the body heal itself.
Julia Jones:
Yeah. And it sounds like because of all of those reasons, it's really appropriate for mums and babies.
Meaghan Beames:
Absolutely. So I specifically treat and train people in craniosacral therapy for babies. That's my specialty. That's what I love to do. That's what I am here on this planet to do. I, I believe, and people, a lot of people are like, well, why would a baby need this type of work? And babies, I mean, being born, no matter which way they are born is traumatic, right? They go from this environment of warmth and protection, and however they make their way into this, you know, the world where they're breathing air, right, is traumatic no matter what. And that can stay in the body, that lives in the body, and that affects the body and how it functions or dysfunctions, right? So a lot of times that's where things like reflux can come, and start is due to stress and trauma with, within that body that is throwing off the function of their digestive tract or throwing off the functioning of their mouth or their cranial nerves that send messages to their tongue, to their throat and, and tells them how to swallow. But if there's trauma held in there, those messages from the brain to those muscles will be unclear. So they won't know how to even use their mouth properly because their cranial nerves are tight. And so we just loosen up these areas and the messages from the brain to the organ. So the organ could be the tongue, the throat, that type of thing. It just functions better. It works better.
Julia Jones:
And so how did you get into this? Were you a craniosacral therapist first, or were you working with babies first?
Meaghan Beames:
I was a massage therapist first. And, I got pregnant very soon after graduating massage therapy school. And I didn't want to do massage in the first place. I wanted to be an osteopath. But the training and the, and the schooling five years, $75,000 was really not something I wanted to do. So I was just stuck with massage. And when I was pregnant, I learned about birth, and I got really into birth, and I wanted to become a doula. So I did the doula training after my son was born. And, because I was so used to having an appointment-based life, right? I was a hairdresser, I was a massage therapist. Everything was appointment based, that I knew I couldn't be on call, that I would love to do this doula thing. I would love to be at births, but I can't be on call.
That's just not the way I'm going to be able to live my life. And I also had, at that time, after finishing my doula programme, I had a six month old baby who needed to sleep in my armpit, essentially. Like he could not leave my armpit all night long. So, for me, the, the thought of having to get up maybe at three or four in the morning to head to a birth was just not something I could do. So, but I still loved birth, I still loved babies. And I was listening to a doula podcast, and someone was on this podcast talking about infant craniosacral therapy. And because I was already interested in osteopathic school, and I already knew about craniosacral therapy, what I didn't know was that I could do craniosacral for babies without becoming an osteopath. I thought I had to be an osteopath in order to work with babies. But through this podcast, I learned that no, I don't in fact need to be an osteopath. I could just learn craniosacral for babies. So this was through Carol Grey, she's in Portland, Oregon in the US and I was like, okay, I know exactly what I need to do. I need to just get myself to Portland, Oregon. But then within a few months, I was pregnant again.
Julia Jones:
Mm-hmm.
Meaghan Beames:
So I really wanted to make my way there. But it actually ended up being a whole two years before I could actually get to do my cranio therapy training. and after that, it was like the rest of my future opened up. I knew exactly what I needed to do with my life, what I wanted to do, with my career. And, the rest is history really.
Julia Jones:
How long have you been doing that now? I imagine your babies aren't babies anymore.
Meaghan Beames:
Oh, they are not babies. No. I've been doing this for six years.
Julia Jones:
And so you started obviously doing craniosacral therapy for babies yourself, but now you also teach others how to do it. How did you make that transition?
Meaghan Beames:
I had been doing cranio for babies for two years when the pandemic happened. And before the pandemic, my business, my cranial business was booming. And it was like I was begging for a break and then the pandemic hit and I had three months of a break. And then I was begging to go back to work. So because my business with babies was crazy busy, and I needed the break, while I was on my break, during that three month stint, during the pandemic, the first lockdown, I realised that it wasn't just that I needed more help with administration in my business, right? Because I knew I needed, like, maybe I needed someone to do my bookings. Maybe I needed someone to do my social media. Maybe I needed something like that. But what I realised, it wasn't that I needed more admin staff, it was that I needed more people to do the cranio psychotherapy.
Meaghan Beames:
So because it was locked down, I couldn't be like, Hey, person who I think I might want to hire, you need to go across the border to the US to take this training because the border was closed. Canadians couldn't go to the US and I didn't trust anyone else to do the training. I didn't trust anybody else's training here in Canada. So I was like, well, I guess if I need to hire someone, I also need to train them. So if I need to train them, then I need to create a curriculum. I ran my first infant cranio psychotherapy class in March 2021. And I had eight people. My goal was to have eight people from the Toronto area. That's where I'm from. I'm from Toronto and Canada, and I had eight people from the Toronto area. Now, some people were like, why would you train people in your area just to, you know, create competition?
Well, I'll tell you something, when my list is full and I have a wait list, I'm still referring out to some of those eight people who I trained. So for me, it's not about competition. It's about, the more people there are in this work, the more likely these babies will actually get access to the work. So that's how I started, was needing more support, was needing more people in this work because my schedule was full and there weren't fewer and fewer babies needing craniosacral. In fact, there were more and more because the people in my area were referring their clients, right? These were lactation consultants, they were midwives, they were doulas. Actually, two, of the students were doulas in the first class. And they were seeing that they would send their clients to me, for, you know, whatever issues they were experiencing when they would come back and they wouldn't have those issues anymore. And they're like, how can I do that? How can I be the one to provide that rather than sending them out to you? And I'm more than happy to teach more people how to do this.
Julia Jones:
Was that very first class online or in person?
Meaghan Beames:
It was in person.
Julia Jones:
It was in person.
Meaghan Beames:
Yeah. So we found a loophole. So it was this, it was like the third lockdown. But we found a loophole where we could have a maximum of 10 people in the class at a time, because it was considered healthcare training in healthcare. So we were able to have the eight students and myself in the classroom. Because we didn't even meet 10. So we had eight people and there was a portion online as well, where I would teach some of the anatomy and some of the theory, but then the majority of it was in person.
Julia Jones:
And then that's what I want to ask about being online. Because this is what people ask me all the time is how can you teach such a manual, physical thing online? Don't you have to be in person to learn that kind of skill?
Meaghan Beames:
I would say yes in person is incredibly valuable. Actually, I would say it is invaluable, just how important it is to have that in person. But on the flip side of that coin, it's possible for you to learn the very, very basic skills of this work online. I'm not going to say you're going to be fantastic at this work. You're not going to be an expert at this work if you're just doing it online. In fact, I think you could only learn the basics online. but I also think you don't need to be in person to the basics.
Julia Jones:
And the basics is probably better than nothing.
Meaghan Beames:
Oh, I know the basics is better than nothing. So it's now been four years of me teaching this online. And what I've found about myself is that I might have 15 people in my online class, right? So we do a Zoom, we do a live zoom. I watch them work on people. What I am able to do is actually like, look at each person working and I can tap in to not only them working, but the body that they're working on. I never thought I could do it before. I always thought that that was weird woowoo stuff.
But then, in these live classes, I would be like, oh, that's interesting. I can see that you're working on their knee now. Right? And they're working on their knee. But then I would think, okay, they're working on their knee, but I can see something in their body. It's travelling up their neck. So I might have said, oh, that's interesting. You're on their knee, but you're working into their neck. And then not them, the practitioner would say, yes, they're working on their neck. The patient or the client that they had on their table that they were working on would say, that's crazy. I can feel it in my neck. So I would get confirmation not only from the practitioner who was learning these skills, but the person on the table. And the feedback that we would get from not just the practitioner learning the skills, but the person on the table was, you know, this pain that I had yesterday is gone. Now the pain that I've had for years is gone now. Right. So that type of feedback is confirmation that people are able to learn this virtually and practise virtually for the basic skills. Not everyone can really pick it up though, I must say. It is challenging for a lot of people.
Julia Jones:
That's so interesting. And it sounds like even though it's an online course, you do a lot of practical skills development.
Meaghan Beames:
Absolutely. We have to. It is a hands-on modality and, and the live classes are mandatory. We have to be able to see that you are doing the technique correctly. I won't ever be able to feel your touch. Absolutely. But I'll know that if you're stroking like this, if it looks like you're petting someone, you're doing it wrong. If I can see indentation in their skin, you're doing it wrong. So there's always benefit to doing it in person, but it's possible virtually.
Julia Jones:
And so now it's obviously grown a lot because you have students all over the world. Where is your business now?
Meaghan Beames:
So we have graduates all over the world, like you said. I believe every continent we have, except for Antarctica. But we have practitioners all over. We've got South Africa, we've got Australia, we've got Ireland, England, Canada, US, Jamaica, we have Indonesia, India. And some have actually flown in from their countries to Canada to do the in-person. But a lot of them have just done the first level virtually.
Julia Jones:
And what's next then? Because I know you do have dreams of expanding your business and how does that look for you?
Meaghan Beames:
So what's next is taking our in-person classes out of North America. So for the last four years, we've only been doing our in-person classes in North America. Right. So I've taught in Las Vegas, California, New York, and Canada and Kentucky of all places in the us and then in Toronto as well. But what I am hoping for is that we can have more of these in-person classes outside of North America. So in July 2025, we have our first out of North America in-person class, and that's in Ireland in July 2025. But I do actually have hopes and dreams of going all the way over because I'm in Canada all the way over to Australia because I know that there are so many people. I have so many followers on Instagram already who are in Australia, and I know that people love working with tongue ties and reflux and birth trauma and all of those things. My dream is that we have practitioners who have completed all levels, all around the world.
Julia Jones:
So eventually you'd have like a train the trainer module, at the end of it.
Meaghan Beames:
Exactly. I actually am no longer teaching the first levels of the courses. I'm not teaching the foundations or the Infant ST level one anymore because I have trained a trainer. So she does the lower level things and I do the in-person things. So it's really building quite a bit.
Julia Jones:
So level two, three and four has to be done in person with you, currently?
Meaghan Beames:
Two and four. So the even numbers are in person and the odd numbers are virtual. The reason why I did level three virtually was because people were asking for more. They were done level two, and they're like, that's great, but I need to know about this, this, and this. And I was like, that's amazing. I can teach you about those, those and those, and you just use your skills from level two and apply them in this.
Julia Jones:
That's it. Yeah, exactly.
Meaghan Beames:
It was my way of bringing this information to them without them needing to fly anywhere, perhaps get a visa if they needed to travel from different countries. They were still able to expand their knowledge and deepen their skills without having to be in person. They're not actually learning new skills, they're applying the same skills in a different way.
Julia Jones:
That makes sense. This all sounds amazing. How do you balance growing your business? You obviously have big ambitions with also having small children and you said before earlier on that you were a bit tired of being like overscheduled and had too many appointments and things. How do you manage that when you're also trying to grow?
Meaghan Beames:
I don't know if I do. I'm still appointment based, so I'm pretty strict about my schedule in that I start my work day at 10 or 10:30 in the morning. So that gives me time with my kids in the morning. I drop them off at school, then I go and I get myself ready for the day. So it gives me time in the morning with my kids and then time for myself before I start my workday. And then I finish my workday at about 3:30 or 4pm. What I say is that my brain kind of shuts off at 3:30. It's like I have no more access to it. It's gone. So I shouldn't work past 3:30. I've got from 10:30 to 3:30 where I either take clients or I'm working and I'm taking meetings and I'm scheduling things, or I'm writing for my podcast or I'm writing for my newsletter and that type of thing. That's how I like to do it. And after 3:30, if anyone wants to talk to me, they're going to get probably not the best version of me.
Julia Jones:
Well, it's funny you say that because it's very similar to how I run my business and the exception I make. And it sounds like the exception that you make is when you have to connect with people in other countries.
Meaghan Beames:
Yeah, absolutely.
Julia Jones:
Because here we are. It's like 8:00 AM for me. And what, like 9:00 PM for you?
Meaghan Beames:
It's 7:42. So I've got 15 minutes before bedtime.
Julia Jones:
So this is unusual for both of us to work outside of school hours. But there's the odd time I really want to connect with someone overseas and I'll make an exception.
Meaghan Beames:
Yes. I totally agree.
Julia Jones:
But I'm the same. I try not to start my work day till 9:30 for the same reasons can get my kids to school and then have a moment to kind of gather myself. And I'm the same. I always finish by 4pm because I'm not much use after that.
Meaghan Beames:
No. And I don't think that it's much balanced. I think that I just do my best to not overwork myself. And then once my day is done, I try not to think about it after. Just like earlier I was saying before we got on was that I try not to have my phone on me in the evenings. Because I want it for my kids. I want it for us. I don't want to think about work at all.
Julia Jones:
I love it. That's beautiful. Well, I have really enjoyed chatting to you and learning a little bit more. I actually know quite a lot about craniosacral therapy because I have a really good family friend who is almost like an aunt to me. So she's been doing it for at least 20 years, a long time. But then I had my own personal experience with it, with babies when my own first baby was born, she was breech. So like you were saying, there was a lot of, you know, stress in her body from that. Both being kind of stuck in my womb in an odd position and then being born in an odd position. And that was a really nice, soothing kind of experience for both of us. It has been really great to hear from you a little bit more about how it works and and how it's growing and I think it's just such a beautiful modality because of its gentleness. And because it's manual. I always think hands-on mothers and babies is just gold standard, isn't it? We all need to be touched more.
Meaghan Beames:
And you know what, every session it's almost like I'm teaching parents how to touch their baby. They don't know how to touch the baby in ways that are soothing. And if they do, it's very intuitive for them. Not everyone is intuitive with their own baby.
Julia Jones:
And lots of people who've been sort of conditioned out of it, like you were saying, there's places in the world where you need a licence to touch. And that kind of makes us all feel like, oh, I have to do a baby massage course so that I know how to touch my baby. And it's only because we've been conditioned to think that we don't just have that innate skill to pick up, to cuddle, to hold. And, so I think anything we can do to encourage people to feel more confident and more intuitive about that is, is going to be good.
Meaghan Beames:
Yeah.
Julia Jones:
Just bringing it
Meaghan Beames:
And just anyone, if you are as gentle as possible, if you are as soft as you can possibly be on the skin, you can do nothing but good. And if your intention is to help, if your intention is to provide relief and love, then you can do nothing but good. But especially with massage and chiro, people think that in order to provide results to help things, you have to do deep pressure. You have to do major cracks, you have to do these major manipulations, but really sometimes the softest of hands is what produces the best results.
Julia Jones:
And also the least risk. I mean, there's no reason not to. So, yeah. I love it. I think it's really great. And you were saying earlier that lots of parents do your sort of beginner courses too, just so to get that confidence, with touching their own babies.
Meaghan Beames:
They do. And some actually will sign up just because they want to treat their own children. They know their children or their babies have gone through something and there are no providers around them. So they're like, who's going to do it? Well, I guess it's going to have to be me. And so they'll take it and the feedback I get from them is like, I am so glad I did this. They're not suffering, I'm not suffering. We're sleeping. You know, their digestion is better. They're eating more, they're saying more, you know, and, and that to me in itself is life-changing and world-changing. Right. Like it can only be good.
Julia Jones:
Yeah. I love it. Thank you so much for sharing. We'll pop the links in the show notes so people can know where to find you. Are there any last things you want to say or share?
Meaghan Beames:
No, I'm so happy and grateful for you to have me on your show. I want more and more people to know about it. If you want to follow me on Instagram, you could do that. Beames CST, Beames is B-E-A-M-E-S-C-S-T, that's my school. And then MyBaby CST is my practice. And that's kind of where I share about what parents can understand. And then the Beames CST is more about what it's like to be a practitioner and how you can either become a practitioner or what it's like to be one of, infant craniosacral therapies. But that's it. I'm so happy I get to spread the message.
Julia Jones:
We're very happy to have you on the show. Thanks very much, Meaghan.
Meaghan Beames:
Thank you.
