Why Do Children Need Paediatric Chiropractic Care?

The brain is the body’s main control centre and communicates with all the muscles, organs, and cells via the nervous system. Sometimes these pathways from the brain to the body can become irritated or distorted by spinal misalignments, and we can experience communication errors (* neural integration). In children and babies, this can manifest in many different ways!

Our aim as paediatric chiropractors is to remove the interference to the nervous system by adjusting the spine, allowing the communication pathways to open up, thereby allowing the body to function at its best.

Childhood is when the nervous system is undergoing its greatest period of growth and change, so we think it is important to ensure that the spine is free from misalignments so that they can develop to their full potential.

How Do Children’s Spines Become Misaligned?

Spinal misalignments and subsequent nerve irritation occur due to physical, chemical and emotional stressors.

In newborn babies, they can occur as a result of awkward uterine positioning, restricted movement and complications during the birth process such as long labour, very fast labour, the use of forceps or caesarian delivery.

In toddlers and children, spinal misalignment usually occurs as a result of their day-to-day lives.

Factors such as poor posture, bumps and falls, repetitive movements, dehydration, too much video game or iPad time and poor food choices can affect the spinal function and cause misalignments.

After assessing a child’s spine and nervous system, there are a number of techniques our paediatric chiropractors can use to treat any misalignments they find.

These include:

  • Activator adjustments; ‘low force’ adjustments using an activator instrument to stimulate the nerves of the joints
  • Manual adjustments; these are the adjustments where you can sometimes hear a ‘crack’ and are used to restore movement to a restricted joint.
  • In children, we only need to use a very gentle manoeuvre to achieve this, and we don’t tend to hear the crack. Whether or not we use this adjustment is always up to the parents.
  • Joint mobilisations
  • Massage
  • Stretching
  • Home advice

If you are unsure if chiropractic is right for your child, call the practice or come in and speak to Dr Jermyn & discuss your concerns.

 

*Neural integration and mechanical dysfunction:

We are living in the golden age of neurological research. Since the early ’90s, our understanding of brain function has grown by leaps and bounds. For instance, we used to think that the brain you are born with is the brain you are stuck with, and no new neurons were ever added. Now we know that we add new neurons our entire lives and new connections between them as well. This process, called neuroplasticity, is driven by input, mainly sensory input. Of all sensory input, the one thing we can sense 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, is gravity and its effects on muscle and joint receptors. This input is called proprioception. The largest source of proprioceptive input is the spinal column and related structures.

As the brain develops, this proprioceptive input is matched with input from the eyes and vestibular canals in the ears to develop a spatial map of our body in its environment. This forms the basis of motor development skills: rolling over, sitting up, crawling and walking. Once we have reached the level of walking upright, we have laid the foundation for cognitive development and speech starts.

The brain further develops hemispheric specialization for certain skills, such as speech in the left hemisphere and interoception on the right.

Understanding the process of brain evolution, growth and development allows us to help people with neurological problems that don’t respond well to traditional medical interventions. Chiropractic adjustments stimulate the proprioceptive system, and by the process of developmental wiring, the whole brain to some extent. This stimulation, combined with nutrition to enhance brain fuel delivery and remove inflammation, helps to increase the rate of neuroplasticity to increase the function of the under-functioning brain areas.

So what does that have to do with health and chiropractic?

When the motion between two vertebrae is restricted due to a misalignment, movement signals are reduced to the brain. Those signals are essential for normal brain function and development. Some believe that movement signals coming from the spine may be the most important information required by the brain. The subluxation (misalignment) is a bottleneck for the constant sensory traffic that normally provides these signals. Chiropractic helps restore the sensory traffic to and from the brain by correcting vertebral subluxations.

Chiropractic works with a respect for your child’s innate potential, helping to restore the spinal pathways to and from the brain.

Why should Children have PaediatricChiropractic care?

More and more parents are seeking chiropractic care for their children. Many spinal problems seen in adults began as early as birth. Even so called “natural” birthing methods can stress an infant’s spine and developing nerve system. The resulting irritation to the nerve system caused by spinal and cranial misalignment can be the cause of many newborn health complaints. Colic, breathing problems, nursing difficulties, sleep disturbances, allergic reactions and chronic infections can often be traced to nerve system stress.

 

Since significant spinal trauma can occur at birth, many parents have their newborns checked right away. As the infant grows, learning to hold up the head, sit, crawl and walk are all activities that affect spinal alignment and are important times to have a child checked by a Chiropractor.

As the child begins to participate in regular childhood activities like skating or riding a bike, small yet significant spinal misalignments (subluxations) may occur. If neglected, the injuries during this period of rapid growth may lead to more serious problems later in life. Subtle trauma throughout childhood will affect the future development of the spine leading to impaired nervous system function. Any interference to the vital nerve system will adversely affect the body’s ability to function at its best.

One of the most common reasons parents seek care for their child is trauma from an injury of some sort. These misalignments may or may not result in immediate pain or symptoms. Regular chiropractic checkups can identify potential spinal injury from these traumas, make the correction early in life and help avoid many of the health complaints seen later in adults. Proper spinal functioning is an important key to better health.
Another sought out reason for care is the resolution of a particular symptom or condition. Parents seek care for conditions such as colic, ear infections, asthma, allergies and headaches (to name a few) because they have heard from other parents that chiropractic care can help.
It is important to understand that the expertise of the chiropractor is in checking the child’s spine for misalignments that impair nervous system function therefore affecting overall body function. The bones of the spine, the vertebrae, house and protect the spinal cord. The spinal cord is an extension of the brain and carries information from the brain to the body parts and back to the brain again. Subluxations interfere with the nerves’ ability to transmit this vital information.

The nervous system controls and coordinates the function of all the systems in the body: circulatory, respiratory, digestive, hormonal, eliminative and immune system. Any aspect of health may be impaired by nerve interference. The chiropractic adjustment restores nerve system function allowing the body the ability to express a greater state of health and well-being.

 

Fussing and crying are normal for infants,

and a fussy baby doesn’t necessarily have colic.

BENEFITS OF PAEDIATRIC CHIROPRACTIC

What Paediatric conditions are treated by Chiropractors?

Birth trauma

Joints may get restricted in natural births, assisted births and caesarean-sections. The risk of developing a restriction is greater if any unnatural traction or rotary forces are applied during delivery.

Breastfeeding difficulty

By assessing the baby’s spine it is possible to determine if the difficulty with latching is being caused by the baby’s discomfort in certain positions. This is often due to restricted joints in the neck, which makes turning the head to one side difficult or uncomfortable.

Sleep disturbances

Sleep in children may be disturbed by discomfort in the back or the neck the same as it would in adults. When you have a restriction, pain and stiffness will increasing any time that you stay still in one position for a long period of time (as when sleeping).

 

Colic

Colic seems to be regularly given out as a diagnosis associated with spells of abdominal pain in infants between the age of 2 weeks and 4 months of age and causes great confusion amongst parents. Colic has been described as “one who, otherwise healthy and well-fed, had paroxysms of irritability, fussing, or crying lasting for a total of three hours a day and occurring on more than three days in any one week for a period of three weeks.

 

Fussing and crying are normal for infants, and a fussy baby doesn’t necessarily have colic.

In an otherwise healthy, well-fed baby, signs of colic include:

 

Predictable crying episodes

 

A baby who has colic often cries about the same time every day, usually in the late afternoon or evening. Colic episodes may last from a few minutes to three hours or more on any given day. Your baby may have a bowel movement or pass gas near the end of the colic episode.

Intense or inconsolable crying: Colic crying is intense, sounds distressed and is often high pitched. Your baby’s face may flush, and he or she is extremely difficult — if not impossible — to comfort.

Crying that occurs for no apparent reason

 

It’s normal for babies to cry sometimes. But, crying usually means your baby needs something, such as food or a clean diaper. Crying associated with colic occurs with no clear cause.

Posture changes

 

Curled up legs, clenched fists and tensed abdominal muscles are common during colic episodes, arching their back while crying.
Chiropractic studies have shown to have a 94% success rate for colic. Chiropractors aim to get to the root of the problem rather than temporarily treating symptoms.
The birth process can be very traumatic for a tiny baby’s body, regardless of a normal birth or surgical birth. The birth process, along with prolonged periods of sitting in forced positions in car seats, prams and poorly designed baby carriers can cause misalignments in baby’s spine (Subluxations). These subluxations can distort the nerve signals between the brain and the body, preventing the messages getting from the brain to the correct parts of the body at the correct time. Chiropractic uses very specific and gentle adjustments to correct any misalignments to the spine that relives the pressure on the nervous system and allows the body to function at it’s best.

Ear infections with fluid build-up

 

Chiropractic treatment for ear infections works by improving the function of the tube that drains from the middle ear (Eustachian tube). (64% success rate)

Delayed developmental milestones

 

Any restriction in a baby’s or child’s spine may cause discomfort in certain positions or movements. This may prevent the child from completing milestones on time (eg. Crawling or sitting). The restrictions can also cause abnormal patterns to their movement (eg. walking with 1 foot turned out or leopard crawling).

Growing pains

 

The commonly occurring “growing pains” experienced in youth are often the pain and discomfort caused by restricted joints and/or muscular spasm.