Why should your baby get adjusted?

So we have identified a few reasons why it is important to get your baby adjusted. The first reason is birth trauma, a lot of things have to go perfectly for that precious little child to enter this world. The second reason is nerve trauma due to the birthing process. And lastly to improve the child’s nerve function and increase their immune response.

Being born is hard work, in fact it is so hard that a recent study by Viola Frymann shows that 90% of newborns suffer from some sort of birth trauma. This study was done over an 8 year period of time using over 1500 newborns as test subjects. All babies were examined within the first 5 days of delivery. The study showed that 80% of babies had some sort of trauma associated with birth. If this trauma is left uncorrected it can show up later in life as impacting development and growth.

Birth Trauma can be many different things as each labor and delivery are unique.

Some injuries are easily identified and some remain hidden until years later and may manifest in a variety of ways. Common birth injuries include: broken bones, cuts, injuries due to the use of forceps or a vacuum for extraction. Overly long and even very short labor may also cause birthing injuries. But these are very apparent injuries, other injuries such as scraps, bruises, and difficulty breathing are all examples of injuries at birth that may go undetected.

Nerve injuries happen during the birthing process as well, in fact a Harvard University pathologist, Dr. Abraham Towbin found that nearly 80% of children have some sort of nerve injury due to birth. This study was presented at the 18th annual Meeting of the American Academy For Cerebral Palsy. This study showed that nerve dysfunction may be seen as trouble breathing, reflux, colic, difficulty nursing and or balance issues, as is the cause any time there are cord compression issues at birth.

Lastly it’s important to adjust your children so that the development and growth of their nervous and immune systems are optimized. What we as chiropractors are looking for is joint fixations that lead to nervous system disturbances/dysfunctions that lead to delayed development with movement, speech, cognitive awareness, and special awareness. Along with decreasing nervous dysfunctions Dr. Candice Pert, a leading psychoneuroimmunoloigist suggests that chiropractic care has a significant impact on optimizing the immunity through maintenance of a healthy nervous system and spinal column.

A pilot study done to examine the relationship between chiropractic care and incidence of childhood disease showed that children who received at least 7 adjustments per year had an increased resistance to common childhood diseases including but not limited to: chronic ear infections, colic, Asthma, digestive issues(constipation and/or loose stools), headaches, learning disabilities, sensory processing disorders, and TMJ.

The last question we often get is; is it safe to have my child adjusted. The newest research suggests that adverse effects occur in 1 in 250 million patients, making adjusting one of the safest procedures known to man. To expound upon this further the force used when treating a child is similar to the force used when changing contacts in the morning or rubbing your eyes midafternoon before that second cup of coffee has kicked in. The child is usually laying on the mother’s chest as force is applied to the child’s spine in a downward motion. The baby’s neck may be adjusted with the baby sitting in the mothers lap or laying across it. Again the pressure used here is about the same amount of pressure used to flip a coin. So if your child is suffering from any of the above mentioned problems or you just want to have them checked out to make sure they are functioning as close to 100% as possible let us know we would be happy to help.

Dr. Kurt Van Veldhuizen

Sources:
Cole Bradburn, “Getting On Your Nerves,” http://colebradburn.com/2011/07/27/getting -on-your-nerves/
NCBI, “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False,”  http//www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327