The Cranial Nerves and Infant Digestion: A New Lens for Understanding Constipation

One of the more common experiences parents have after their first few pediatric chiropractic visits is a return of their infant’s normal digestive functioning, after days or sometimes weeks of chronic constipation. How and why does this happen?

It should be noted, first and foremost, that every adjustment is a “success,” in and of itself, if it allows a greater expression of nervous system function throughout the body. This enhanced nervous system expression is partly the secret for the common improvement parents experience for their infants.

However, there’s an important reason why chiropractic “works” for things like infant digestive conditions, and here we’ll explore some of the cutting-edge information that’s now available relating to the brain and nervous system. Hopefully, this will encourage not only new chiropractic insights in practice but also greater autonomy for parents and individuals alike to gain more control over their family’s health.

A Holistic View of Health: The Nervous System

It isn’t just toxins, nutrient deficiencies, hormonal imbalances, and “stress” that play a role in the body’s expression of health. It’s our emotions and the nervous system’s reaction to sudden distress in life. To understand the effect these reactions have on our health, we must begin to appreciate the central role of the nervous system in biology.

The nervous system is a biochemical instrument “tuned” to the language of emotion.

For many chiropractors, the nervous system is the cornerstone of their practice and philosophy. Traditionally speaking, the nervous system amounts to the sum total of biochemical and electrical nerve-communications that supply and control the various organs and functions in the body. Yet, this is only a physical description of the nervous system…Beyond this framework, we all intimately know that, in some way, the nervous system implicitly responds to our emotions and our subjective state of mind, and furthermore, that through the language of our emotions, our nervous system directs and orchestrates our biology. The nervous system is a biochemical instrument “tuned” to the language of emotion.

Cranial Nerves: Conduits of Emotion

Each of 12 cranial nerves is known to be responsible for innervating and coordinating the function of one or more organs in the body. What we are now beginning to observe is how each cranial nerve serves as a conduit for information about our emotional experiences in life. In this way, the cranial nerves not only direct the functions of specific organs, but they also connect those organs to the “online” world of our present moment experience, thoughts, and feelings.

Now the key idea in all of this isn’t that “emotions connect to the body” via the 12 cranial nerves. Rather, it’s how certain emotions, specifically distressing emotional shocks, travel along the cranial nerves to affect a corresponding organ and thus allow for a rapport between our life experiences and our organs. From this framework, we will begin to understand how our subjective experiences in life shape our biological expression of health.

When discussing the function of digestion specifically, there are two cranial nerves (and therefore two kinds of emotional shocks) that are instrumental to understand.

The 10th and 11th Cranial Nerves: The Vagus and Accessory Nerves

The vagus nerve is an enormously significant cranial nerve for many reasons, not least of which are the number of organs it controls, from the vocal cords, to the heart, as well as the intestinal tract. There is no doubt that the role of the vagus nerve is key in the infant’s healthy expression in the early months and years of life. This nerve not only innervates some of the facial muscles necessary for breastfeeding, it also orchestrates the vital functions of digestion. More on this later.

On the other hand, the accessory nerve, or 11th cranial nerve, controls the function of the trapezius muscles and the sternocleidomastoid muscles (the largest muscle of the cervical spine). So when we want to move our head, neck, or upper body, it’s the accessory nerve that mediates this action. For an infant who is learning to breastfeed, and later on, how to roll over and crawl, these muscles supplied by the accessory nerve are vitally important.

Before we dive into the effect that these two cranial nerves have on infant digestion, let’s first discuss more of the bigger picture, of how these cranial nerves relate to specific emotional shocks.

The Vagus Nerve

As we were saying before, there’s a designated cranial nerve for different kinds of emotional distress. The vagus nerve (specifically the portion that innervates the intestinal digestive tract), responds to and mediates distress concerned with the experience of “indigestible morsels.” On one hand, this can be a food morsel that is stuck or hard to transport through the intestines. On the other hand, the distressing feeling can be a sense of “lack,” i.e., of not having the “morsels” that we want or need to survive.

In other words, the vagus nerve (the portion that innervates the intestinal tract) responds to the distress around “nourishment,” of not having or not digesting the food substances that we need to survive. (Later in life, figurative “morsels” like money, clothes, possessions, etc., can be interpreted as the “morsels” that we want or need to survive.)

The emotional distress of “not being able to move the head or neck sufficiently” can lead to a simultaneous peristaltic constipation in the intestines!

Let’s now take a moment to empathize with an infant’s early experiences. During the first year of life, this tiny human being’s predominant focus is on obtaining and digesting breast milk or other sources of nourishment. So much of their life revolves around this major drive.

If he or she experiences an acute sense of lack—perhaps due to minimal availability of milk, or perhaps due to abrupt, unexpected interruptions to feeding, or a number of other possibilities—and if the infant experiences the sense of lack as emotionally distressing, then the vagus nerve will mediate this emotional distress to the intestinal tract by slowing the peristaltic motion in the smooth musculature of the intestines. This peristaltic “slowing down” allows for any sustenance in the body to have more time to be absorbed through the intestinal walls.

So rather than passing the morsel, the body slows the morsel down. The consequence of this is “constipation.” Constipation, in this case, is not an error of the body, but an intelligent response of the brain and nervous system to this particular situation of sensing “lack.” (To explore another scenario for constipation, read the section on the accessory nerve.)

On the other hand, if the emotional distress an infant experiences is about feeling a “stuck” or “indigestible morsel,” which is quite common as he or she learns to assimilate and pass food substance through the alimentary canal, then the vagus nerve will respond with a different adaptive response of increasing the peristaltic action of the smooth musculature, exactly where the “morsel” is felt to be “stuck.” This response is designed to help move the morsel further along, and the consequence here is “colic pains,” i.e., an increased peristaltic tonic cramping in the intestines.

In both scenarios of either colic or constipation, we have the vagus nerve mediating an intelligent organ-level response, which occurs upon the perception of a particular unexpected distress! However, if there is no distress over a “stuck morsel” or over a “lack” of sustenance, then there will be no cranial nerve activation that causes these acute organ responses.

The Accessory Nerve

Next, let’s look at how the accessory nerve relates to the condition of constipation. The accessory nerve controls the sternocleidomastoid and trapezius muscles. These are important striated muscles of the neck and upper back that have an obvious connection to an infant’s ability to latch and breastfeed and obtain nourishment. If these muscles are compromised, due to birth trauma or other factors, then it’s easy for the infant to experience distress over his or her ability to acquire food.

However, there is an even deeper and more direct connection between the accessory nerve and our digestive system, which is quite amazing. Let’s begin with an interesting fact about the trapezius muscles. It’s not as commonly recognized, however, there is a layer of smooth musculature along the trapezius muscle’s outer walls. This is a lining of smooth muscle that is akin to the smooth muscles of the intestines. In fact, these two smooth muscle groups are embryologically linked together. The two different cranial nerves, therefore, have a portion of their nerve tracts that run in parallel, where the function of the accessory nerve can affect the vagus nerve, and vice versa. 

To get a clear idea of how these two areas of the body are vitally connected, try gently rotating your head and positioning your chin up and to the right (or left), activating the sternocleidomastoid muscles of the neck. Imagine reaching your mouth to something up to the right or left. Now do this while paying attention to the sensations in your lower belly. If you tune in, you will notice a shift in tone or tension in how the deep gut viscera activates when you engage the sternocleidomastoid muscles. This demonstrates the unique interconnection between these two seemingly separate organs.

Just like the rest of the cranial nerves, the accessory nerve innervating the upper back and neck responds to a specific kind of emotional distress, and this is a feeling of being “unable to turn the body, head or neck sufficiently.” If we have difficulty moving our head or neck, and if this causes acute emotional distress, then the accessory nerve immediately responds to adapt the muscles of the neck and back. Along with this response, there occurs a partial paralysis of the smooth musculature that lines the outer wall of the trapezius.

Because they are embryologically linked, this unique distress affecting the accessory nerve can simultaneously activate the vagus nerve to signal a peristaltic immobility in the intestines. In other words, the unique emotional distress of “not being able to move the head or neck sufficiently,” can lead to a simultaneous peristaltic constipation in the intestines!

And this is one of the key points of this article, because we can now see why chiropractic is so helpful for the relief of constipation in infants. In plain English, with an adjustment that addresses subluxations and tensions in the head and neck, the chiropractor directly affects the infant’s ability to regain mobility of the head and neck, and this in turn resolves the distress of “not being able to turn or move the head and neck sufficiently” which was causing the smooth muscle constipation in the intestines.

The Experience of Being an Infant

Breastfeeding, connection, and digestion are fundamental in the deepest sense and absolutely wired for the infant’s survival. This means the ability to move the head and neck sufficiently for breastfeeding is of paramount importance to the infant!

Imagine, for a moment, feeling limited, strained, or tense in the neck, resulting in a hindrance of your range of motion and ability to breastfeed. Perhaps (and most likely) this muscular strain and limitation is the result of earlier birth trauma. Or perhaps it is due to external factors of how we are held, feeling stuck in a car seat, or suboptimal breastfeeding positions…Consider the general frustration and outright biological distress this could cause…the sense of vulnerability of feeling restricted in a small body that is unable to do what you want or need it to do for survival.

Whether through physical strain, birth trauma, or other factors, this head and neck constraint can be highly distressing for an infant. As long as the infant perceives this distress, the accessory nerve will continue to cause a smooth musculature response in both the trapezius muscles, and simultaneously in the intestinal smooth muscles causing “constipation.”

On the other hand, if the infant doesn’t feel distressed despite any of these constraining factors, then there will be no nervous system stress response from this cranial nerve, because there is no corresponding emotional distress signal.

Ultimately, this information allows us to understand the causal relationship between a digestive condition and the individual’s nervous system and emotional state. And it also reveals an understanding of why chiropractic works when it addresses the root cause.

For an infant suffering distress over an inability to move the head and neck, a chiropractor offers an immediate and pragmatic solution. By addressing the tensions and subluxations in the cervical spine, neck, and cranium, the chiropractor helps the infant resolve the mobility difficulty in a literal and pragmatic way, thus “freeing” the accessory nerve from the emotional signal of distress. If, however, the emotional distress persists, then the adjustment will likely not be sufficient on its own as a mere “mechanistic intervention.”

Like a lightbulb turning on, the fear and distress held in their nervous system dissolves.

The Key to Chiropractic Success

You may have heard chiropractic explained like this: The adjustment restores normal function to your nervous system, allowing life to express itself more fully through the body.

To see the chiropractic picture “holistically,” in the fullest sense of this word, and to really understand the power of chiropractic, we must begin to empathize with the experiential and emotional reality of the individual. Beyond its pragmatic approach of supporting the body physically and functionally, and even going beyond the focus on supporting the nervous system’s clear communication, chiropractic has a way of going one step further, by holding a space of open potential for the “higher nervous system,” the mind, soul, or consciousness to resolve the underlying emotional conflict that’s affecting the body.

Summary

For the infant with a digestive condition like colic or constipation, we are beginning to appreciate the holistic picture, understanding how emotions shape biology through the cranial nerves. For colic pains, we are looking at a particular distress affecting the vagus nerve, of feeling unable to transport a morsel through our digestive system, causing tonic cramping that works to “push” the stuck morsel through the intestines. If the infant isn’t emotionally distressed, then there will be no colic cramping that results.

The same principle applies to constipation. Here we are looking at two possible distresses: A distress over “lack” regarding nourishment, which causes a peristaltic slowing down of the smooth muscles of the intestines. And the seemingly unrelated distress of being unable to move the neck and upper back sufficiently, which causes a peristaltic “paralysis” in the smooth muscles of the upper back, and simultaneously, an impedance of peristaltic motion in the intestinal smooth muscles.

Through breastfeeding support, and through direct remediation of the source of the perceived distress, the chiropractor’s involvement can offer a direct resolution of the root cause of the problem. While in each example, the delicate hands of a chiropractor’s support conveys a powerful message: “I am here with you, I know where you’re at, and what you’re dealing with.” And an equally important message of confidence comes through: “No matter what, this adjustment will be beneficial to the whole of your body’s expression of health.”

And you know what that does? It completely changes the experience of the one on the receiving end of that touch. Like a lightbulb turning on, the fear and distress held in their nervous system dissolves. And a feeling of support takes its place, allowing for the self-discovery of a greater level of innate health potential.

For more information on this subject, visit gnminstitute.com.