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Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

The Benefits of Baby Massage

Posted on: June 3rd, 2025 by TouchStone Health

By Maggie, Seegmiller, RMT


Massage therapy can be very helpful for babies, and many parents find it a great way to bond with their child. Research shows that gentle touch, like massage, can help babes feel calm and connected to their caregivers. Working with a Registered Massage Therapist can provide extra teaching and support, which can be particularly helpful if a baby is facing specific challenges like torticollis (tight, short neck muscles), plagiocephaly (flat spots on head), feeding issues, sleep problems, or digestive discomfort. 

For babies with torticollis, an RMT can use gentle techniques to help relax tight neck muscles and encourage a greater range of motion. This can make it easier  for the baby to turn their head both ways. This may aid in improving head shape and reduce or prevent plagiocephaly. An RMT can also guide parents in stretching and positioning to use at home to support progress. 

When a baby has tight muscles in their face, jaw or neck, it can affect how well they latch or suck. Massage therapy can be effective in gently working these areas to reduce tension, which may improve feeding and make it a more comfortable experience for both baby and parent. 

Sleep and digestion can also be positively impacted by massage therapy. Regular massage increases relaxation and lowers stress hormones, allowing sleep to come more easily and soundly. When it comes to digestion, we know that relaxation is important, but there are also specific treatments aimed at reducing symptoms of gas and constipation that can give very effective relief. 

Overall, massage therapy is a gentle and natural way to support a baby’s development and comfort. Whether you would like your baby to be seen for a specific issue, or you would just like to learn how to incorporate massage as part of your caregiving at home, working with an RMT will ensure the techniques are safe and effective. Touch Stone Health offers this treatment option.

 If interested, please choose “Baby Massage” when booking with Maggie Seegmiller, RMT. 

5 Ways Osteopathy Can Help with Low Energy

Posted on: April 8th, 2025 by TouchStone Health

By Leann Mai, (M. OMSc) Manual Osteopath Practitioner

1.        Moves the fascia that surrounds our muscles and bones which helps fluid move between the joints, making motion easier.

2.        Resets the tone of the nervous system between the sympathetic response and parasympathetic response, giving you a better quality sleep.

3.        Aligns the diaphragms, improving each breath and therefore improving the quality of blood being supplied to the liver amongst all our other tissues.

4.        Improves barriers to the limbs, increasing coordination and nervous impulse, making our muscles stronger.

5.        Improves body mind connection through all of the above, which means hormone improvement with better energy and mood. 

How to Build a Hormone-Balancing Meal

Posted on: April 4th, 2025 by TouchStone Health

By Melanie Reidl, Naturopathic Doctor

Many of my patients struggle to know how to eat in order to support their hormones and metabolism. The food you eat consistently truly impacts whatever hormone-related health issue you are experiencing, from fertility challenges to perimenopausal concerns, fatigue to weight management. 
Here are the steps to building a simple hormone- and blood sugar-balancing meal:

1. Non-Starchy Veggies / Greens  – Load up your bowl/plate with a combination of any type of non-starchy vegetables (bonus points for the dark leafies like kale!) Cruciferous vegetables contain powerful hormone detoxifying ingredients, and leafy greens provide my favourite mineral, magnesium, amongst many other vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and insoluble fibre!

2. Protein – Add a ‘hand-sized’ serving of high-quality protein (ie leftover chicken, fish, and/or hard boiled eggs) to stabilize blood sugar & insulin and regulate hunger.

3. Complex Carb / Fibre – Add approximately a ‘fist sized’ serving of quinoa, root vegetable, or beans/legumes to pump up the fibre content to keep you satiated, provide a steady stream of energy for the day, and to feed your microbiome.

4. Healthy Fats – Add a homemade olive oil based salad dressing for a dose of good mono-unsaturated fats, and if you wish, add some slices of avocado or raw nuts or seeds as well. Healthy fats help to regulate blood sugar, reduce inflammation, and regulate hunger.

Pro Tip 1: Prepare a larger batch of protein in advance (ie Triple the amount of protein you prepare at Sunday dinner) to ensure that protein is always available when meal time rolls around! 

Pro Tip 2: Make sure that you keep your fridge + pantry stocked with healthy essentials (ie a variety of fresh or frozen veggies, eggs, canned chickpeas, extra virgin olive oil) 

Now you know the basic steps to creating an easy, hormone-balancing meal that creates a strong foundation for the treatment of most of the women’s hormone health conditions that I see. Bon Appetit!

The “Secret” to Weight Loss is Healthy Hormones & Optimal Body Composition

Posted on: January 31st, 2025 by TouchStone Health

By Melanie Reidl, Naturopathic Doctor


How do we achieve healthy metabolic hormones (ie insulin, cortisol, leptin) and optimize body composition (increase muscle, decrease fat)?

Here are 3 important points:

1 – Strength Train/Lift Weights 3-4x/Week 

Strength training helps build lean muscle mass, which improves metabolic health & improves insulin sensitivity. Guidance + accountability with this piece can be very helpful, and I have some excellent personal trainer recommendations and tips on integrating a strength training program.

2 – Optimize Protein + Fibre intake for your Body 

Your age, activity level, and other health factors influence your daily protein requirements. Sufficient amino acid intake signals to the brain that we are full, and helps to prevent overeating. Fibre is also important for its beneficial impact on insulin sensitivity, so we need to mindfully calculate and optimize our daily intake. Guidance + accountability, such as with diet diaries and tracking Apps can really help with this piece.

3 – Assessment/Testing to Determine Your Body’s Unique Biochemistry + Physiology

Through testing + assessment, we can look at individualized factors that influence metabolic health, such as insulin resistance, thyroid health, stress/cortisol, nutrient levels, liver health, inflammation, microbiome health, and more. Your ND could be helpful in this piece in addition to point number 2!  🙂 

If you’re ready to feel like your healthiest, most confident, and beautiful self, I’d be honoured to support you. 

5 Ways Osteopathy Can Help with Sinus Infections:

Posted on: December 4th, 2024 by TouchStone Health

By Leann Mai (M. OMSc)

1     Opens blood supply and drainage through the neck

2 Realigns cranial bones to relieve blockages to the drainage and supply of the sinus tissues

3       Reduces fascia bind at the base of the head and cervical spine to allow ease of motion through the head and eyes

      Improves and coordinates function of diaphragms through shoulders, jaw, sinus’ and through the brain and spinal cord

      Restores lymphatic flow through head, neck, and brain.

RE defining Health with Osteopathy

Posted on: October 7th, 2024 by TouchStone Health

By Leann Mai (M. OMSc)

Our bodies are amazing machines, they have built in mechanisms to heal and protect that we aren’t even aware of – it’s like a software program always running in the background so that we can work, enjoy, and play our days away! 

We change the way we play as we get older, running around playing tag or playing sports may be something we enjoy in the first few decades of life – we may thrive on the competition or the achievement of success as part of a team. Often in the third, fourth and fifth decades we redefine fun according to our limitations as we start to notice our body doesn’t respond the way it used to. We try training, like we did in the second decade and still, not the same response. We often notice our health isn’t what it used to be either. 

Perhaps defining our health to meet the same criteria it was in previous decades is the problem. Maybe we should still focus in on the joy of what we can do and continue making goals based on where we are rather than beating ourselves up for not being able to do more.

Osteopathy can help support the body with shifting into mobility and movement focused exercise that will have way more benefit physically and physiologically to our overall health than the no pain, no gain theory. Our standard of competition should be to ourselves (not the Jones’) and redefined as progression.

We need to be open to variety- we have joints that move in multiple planes and a nervous system that loves rhythm! We can learn from young children, they love to walk, dance, swim, and swing, to name a few things they enjoy. They just enjoy discovering how their body can move!

So perhaps re defining health means being young at heart, go for a bike ride by the river, dance while making dinner, swing with your kids, it doesn’t matter- just move! 

Let osteopathy show you how tomorrow can be a better day.

Cheers to you and your newly defined health!!   

5 ways Osteopathy Can Help with Low Energy

Posted on: September 19th, 2024 by TouchStone Health

By Leann Mai (M. OMSc)

1.        Moves the fascia that surrounds our muscles and bones which helps fluid move between the joints, making motion easier.

2.        Resets the tone of the nervous system between the sympathetic response and parasympathetic response, giving you a better quality sleep.

3.        Aligns the diaphragms, improving each breath and therefore improving the quality of blood being supplied to the liver amongst all our other tissues.

4.        Improves barriers to the limbs, increasing coordination and nervous impulse, making our muscles stronger.

5.        Improves body mind connection through all of the above, which means hormone improvement with better energy and mood. 

BOOK AN APPOINTMENT

4 Ways to be Proactive to Optimize Your Fertility

Posted on: September 12th, 2024 by TouchStone Health

By Melanie Reidl, Naturopathic Doctor

Whether you are currently TTC (trying to conceive) and have yet to achieve a healthy pregnancy, or are planning to TTC within the next year, these 4 items are key! ????

You absolutely *DO NOT* need to wait an entire year before having some basic testing done to see if your fertility is being impacted by things such as: suboptimal metabolic health, thyroid function, hormone dysfunction, or nutritional status factors.

Here are 4 things you can do *NOW*:

1 – SCREENING BLOOD WORK

2 – CYCLE/HORMONE/HEALTH ASSESSMENT

3 – DIET & LIFESTYLE MODIFICATIONS

4 – INDIVIDUALIZED SUPPLEMENTS

In some cases, there is a true reproductive pathology (ie low ovarian reserve, low sperm count, severe endometriosis) that may require intervention from a fertility clinic.

However, in MANY CASES, the previously mentioned systems are dysfunctional, and it is a matter of determining which systems need targeted support (via diet, lifestyle, supplements, etc).

If you’re currently/soon to be TTC, I would be honoured to support you in your journey! BOOK AN APPOINTMENT

5 Ways Osteopathy Helps with Plantar Fasciitis

Posted on: August 1st, 2024 by TouchStone Health

by Leann Mai, M. OMSc

1       RE-ALIGN the gravitational loading through the feet, and reducing stress points through the leg and feet. When your body leans forward (in flexion) your feet spread to keep you upright from falling forward, when your body tends to lean backward (in extension) your arches elevate to help anchor your feet through your toes to the ground to keep you upright from falling backward.

2       REDUCES TENSION through the muscles holding the leg and feet. This allows easier coordinated movement of the ankle joints often relieving low back strain too.

3       IMPROVES COORDINATION through all the joints in the feet/toes to the brain through the nervous system. It improves coordination through the receptor feedback and reflex responses (like stepping on a sharp rock- Ouch!)

4       IMPROVES DRAINAGE and supply to the foot as the fascial tissues through the ankle and arch support a mechanical pumping motion, pushing the blood and lymphatic supply back up through the leg.

5       PAIN REDUCTION, a byproduct of all the systems working together to coordinate motion through fascia, muscle, ligaments, nerves and fluid flow into the body through the gait cycle.

PRECONCEPTION HEALTH BEGINS 3-6 MONTHS BEFORE TRYING TO CONCEIVE

Posted on: July 27th, 2024 by TouchStone Health

by Melanie Reidl, Naturopathic Doctor

Preconception health is *so* much more than just taking a prenatal vitamin (and even that should be looked at carefully!)

At minimum, preconception health begins 3 months before trying to conceive (TTC). Egg & sperm development takes approximately 90 days, so it is a critical window of time. 

As a Naturopathic Doctor, these are the things I review with my patients who are planning/starting to TTC (this applies to both partners): 

  • ️ Nutrition, Exercise, Sleep, Stress Review
  • ️ Menstrual Cycle Assessment
  • ️ General Health Assessment (ie gut health, metabolic health)
  • ️ Basic Preconception Bloodwork (ie iron, thyroid, fasting insulin & glucose for insulin resistance, vitamin D3, progesterone)
  • ️ Fertility Awareness Method / Cycle Tracking education

There is so much to review & discuss before you TTC to optimize your hormones & reproductive health and therefore your chances of conceiving & maintaining a healthy pregnancy. I hope to be a part of your fertility & pregnancy journey.

Book an appointment with Dr. Melanie Reidl, ND

564-572 Weber Street North, Unit 3A
Waterloo, Ontario
N2L5C6