Most people think chiropractors are back doctors. So, when a child has a fall or a child has neck pain or back pain, obviously, they’re going to bring them to a chiropractor to get checked. But there are many reasons why a parent should seek chiropractic care for their child.
Something we see in infancy is called lie neck or torticollis. If the birth is an extended process, sometimes there can be slow labor, and the baby’s head might be out for a while. Sometimes they might need to use a little energy to kind of pull the neck to help the baby come out. That can injure the neck or be a traumatic birth injury. So, the baby’s head might slop over to one side and lock. That is the torticollis, which is quite common to see in some of the children who have more difficult births or a C-section.
Some parents bring their kids in for scoliosis screenings to make sure that the spine is straight and that there is no curvature. As the adage goes, “as the twig is bent, so grows the tree.” As a parent, you want to make sure that as they go through every stage of growth and development, your children are checked periodically to make sure there are no misalignments that might allow that to progress or become more significant later in life.
Then there is also the general health maintenance idea. Since the nervous system is the master system, and the bones and the spine protect the nervous system, obviously anything like stress, tension, poor posture, accidents, falls could create misalignment in the spine. If those bones misalign, they actually irritate the same nerves that they are designed to protect. Now, that spinal nerve irritation can create static in the communication line from the brain to the body, and then the body is not working as well as it should. You’re going to have a disconnect from the brain and the brain trying to tell the liver, the kidney, or the spleen what to do. Those messages might not get there completely or they might be distorted. That can cause malfunction in the kidney and make it look like a child has kidney problems. Some of these things, if they go on long enough, will actually look like organic disease.
The general health maintenance is really my favorite part to do to make sure that the spine grows straight, that there are no misalignments, so the mechanics stay strong, and that you don’t see the degenerative changes you might see later. As a chiropractor, I want to eliminate any nerve pressure interference on the spine so the nervous system works better and the body works optimally. Those are the primary general health benefits that you will get from chiropractic.
Consider if you ask someone if they started working out. “If you start working out, do you think you’ll lose weight? Yes. Do you think that you’ll have more energy? Yes. Do you think you’ll sleep better?” Just like working out, doing one thing can affect a whole lot of different systems.
It is the same thing with chiropractic. If you improve the nervous system function, you’re going to improve the function of the entire body. That is why it’s so important to get your kids checked. It’s not just about if they have neck pain, back pain, or if they took a fall, or if they have scoliosis. It is about checking and adjusting to make sure that the nervous system is working at its optimal potential. The better the nervous system works, the healthier your kid will be and the way they will stay throughout the course of their lifetime.
That’s why I think it is important to get checked whether you have issues or not. I always talk about this with my patients; you don’t wake up in the morning and say, “Well, my teeth don’t hurt. I’m not going to brush them.” You brush them whether they hurt or not. You don’t wake up in the morning of your dental appointment and say, “My teeth don’t hurt. I’m going to cancel my dental appointment.” You go for the cleaning because you know it’s going to be good for you, and you know if you do the maintenance, your teeth are going to last you a lifetime. The spine is no different. If you maintain it, you keep it healthy. Then it will serve you well through infancy, childhood, adulthood, throughout the course of your lifetime, and you will lead an active, healthy life.
Dr. Gregg D. Rubinstein, D.C., is a midtown Manhattan chiropractor with over 20 years of experience providing customized chiropractic treatment services to a wide range of clients in the Midtown Manhattan/West New York City area. Dr. Gregg Rubinstein and 57th Street Chiropractic can be reached at (917) 534-6484 and is located at 119 West 57th St. in New York, NY.
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