Listen or Read Dr. Rubinstein’s Monthly Podcast Interview!
Topic: Growing Stages
Below you will find an easy to read transcript of Dr. Gregg Rubinstein’s interview on the razorcast™ monthly podcast. You can click to listen to the podcast or read the easy to follow transcript below. Enjoy!
Podcast Interview:
RC: Hello everyone, this is Liz Harvey coming to you from our razorcast™ studios in New York City where we are dedicated to bringing you top quality advice from many of the leading expert professionals across the United States.
In today’s episode we are speaking with chiropractor, Dr. Gregg Rubinstein. Dr. Rubinstein is the founder of 57th Street Chiropractic located in the heart of Midtown Manhattan where he has been practicing since 1993. He specializes in pediatric & family care and Dr. Rubinstein is a long standing member of the International Chiropractic Pediatrics Association. He also serves as a board member of Friends of Fresh and Green Academy, a non-profit organization that does extensive charity work in education in Ethiopia.
Dr. Rubinstein is widely considered to be one of the top chiropractors in the U.S. and is also a contributing member of our national network of razorcast™ professionals.
Today we are going to talk about a very important topic:
Growing Stages
RC: Hi Dr. Rubinstein, how are you today?
Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: I’m doing great Liz, good morning. Thanks for having me on again.
RC: Thanks for being here.
Question 1: How do you define a growing stage?
RC: So how do you define a growing stage?
Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: You know, there’s many different growing stages. Really what we talk about mostly though is usually growth and development in the infant. That’s when most of the growth occurs and it happens from the moment of conception. All of a sudden those cells start dividing rapidly and you get this big mass of cells and then all of a sudden there’s the differentiation stage where those cells start to become different and a lot of those cells start to become part of the nerve system because that’s the primary communication system. Then coming off the nerve system then you’ll start to see growth and development of the limb buds and the heart bud and the liver bud and everything kind of comes off that central nerve system because it needs direction, it needs to be told what to do. That amazing intelligence that took two cells and starts to make a whole baby is guiding that whole process. And so there aren’t specifics where one starts and one ends, it’s a continuous growth thing until we basically hit about twenty-two years old (for most women is when all the final growth plates actually close). So growth is – you can separate it into stages and say infancy and then toddler and adolescent and move through there, but it is pretty much a constant thing of growth all the way up until we reach skeletal maturity.
So it’s hard to delineate where one starts and one stops and for many different purposes there are different separations but really there’s just different stages in life and some of them are marked by rapid growth and some of them are more slow and sustained. So it’s not super important for the average person to define where infancy ends and toddlers begin and things of that nature.
Question 2: Are growing stages the same for males and females?
RC: Got it. So are growing stages about the same for males and females?
Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: No, you can kind of see that in evidence of when puberty comes on. You’ll see it much earlier in the adolescent girls than you will in the boys and there’s a big gap there in growth. I think I remember I can’t remember exactly when, it was like third or fourth grade and then all of a sudden all the girls were much bigger than the guys and about a year and a half later it switched back. And then men will usually complete their growth stages and reach skeletal maturity usually around eighteen or nineteen where it takes a little bit longer for the women. They’re usually completed around twenty-two years of age. So there are differences in the timing of these different stages but they’re essentially similar.
Question 3: During growth and development in children, what do you look for in a chiropractic exam?
RC: And during growth and development in children, what do you look for in a chiropractic exam?
Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: Well those stages are really important because you can tend to notice things and if you catch things early, you can prevent them from becoming bigger problems later. Things that you look at in an infant or a child as they’re growing up. Is one shoulder high than the other one? Is one leg longer than the other if you lay them down across the bed with their legs hanging off? Do the legs actually line up? Look at their hips, have them take off a shirt and bend forward, any curves in the spine? Are there any things that look asymmetrical, is one side popping out more than the other? Is one hip higher than the other? So you can actually teach adults and parents how to do simple exams on children and you can kind of look for those things. So I’m looking for all types of symmetry, symmetrically balance and proper movement of the spinal segments when I examine a child which really isn’t that far different than an adult but it’s more important in a child because if you catch it early, you can prevent all kinds of problems from getting set up and becoming more significant in adulthood.
Question 4: What are some issues related to a growth stage that chiropractic care can help with?
RC: And what are some issues related to a growth stage that chiropractic care can help with?
Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: Well one of the most important things when I view it is really in the formation of scoliosis. When the spine is growing, if it’s growing straight, there is even pressure on the growth plates that are in-between the bones. And when the growth plates have even pressure on them, they’re going to grow about the same. But if let’s say a vertebra is tilted more on one side or they’re putting more pressure on the left side of the vertebrae than the other one, the growth might occur faster on the far side and much slower or less on the side that has more pressure on it. And that can create wedging of the vertebrae or abnormal growth or scoliosis and those are things that you always want to look at because with children it’s all about prevention. They’re not born messed up, they’re born healthy and it’s just a matter of making sure that every stage of growth and development goes unimpeded without any interference, without any undue pressure from the growth plates or even on the nerve system which controls and coordinates everything that goes on through every stage of growth and development.
Question 5: What is the best time to seek chiropractic care for a child?
RC: Okay and what is the best time to seek chiropractic care for a child?
Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: You know, I believe we spoke about this earlier. You know I recommend getting a child checked as soon as possible. Even with a “normal birth” where the mother has no intervention and has the baby vaginally. There still can be pressure put on the baby’s neck very early. So we recommend getting them checked right after birth. Sometimes they need to be adjusted, sometimes they don’t but it’s always good to get them checked particularly because the birth trauma is usually where you’ll see the first subluxation. Then as you watch kids getting older, they start to learn to walk, they tumble, they fall twenty-thirty-forty times a day. Then when the kids get older then they start playing sports and riding their bicycles and rough housing with their brothers and sisters and those things can cause little traumas. And most of what happens to children accumulates over a long period of time, then in their teen years or twenty years a lot of these problems that developed early, if they were never checked, will set the stage for bigger problems later in life.
So most often when we’re looking and working with children it’s really more about prevention, not really treating any specific problem. But you can find these things earlier, detect them early, handle them when they’re small problems so they never become big problems.
RC: Alright well thank you so much Dr. Rubinstein. We know you’re really busy so I just want to thank you for all your time and help today.
Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: It’s always an honor to be here with you guys Liz and any information I can share is always welcome.
RC: Thank you so much and for our listeners across the country, if you are interested in speaking with Dr. Gregg Rubinstein, you can either go online at www.chiropractormidtown.com or call (917) 534-6484 to schedule an appointment.
On behalf of our entire team at razorcast™, we want to thank you for listening and we look forward to bringing you more top quality content from our country’s leading experts.
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