Many parents want to know at what age they should bring their child in for chiropractic care. In our practice, we work a lot with expecting moms. They ask these questions, and we always tell them, and we joke around a little bit, that chiropractic is really important basically from the womb to the tomb.
A lot of moms come in when they’re pregnant because they know that chiropractic is great for naturally relieving some of the back pain and discomfort that’s associated with being pregnant. We also employ the Webster technique, which is really about relaxing some of the ligaments in the pelvic girdle and adjusting the pubic symphysis and lining up the sacroiliac joints to improve birth outcomes. Most of the research shows that when we apply the Webster technique correctly to a mom, it results in less pain during pregnancy, less pain during delivery, shorter delivery times, and most importantly, less need for interventions, particularly like Pitocin, epidurals, and C-sections.
We’ve talked in the past about the intelligence that created the baby. Basically, half comes from the mom and the egg, the other half comes from the dad and the sperm. They come together and then that intelligence guides the development of the embryo into a full baby after 280 to 290 days. Well, if during the last trimester of pregnancy, the baby is head down, if you ever look at those pictures, you can see that the baby’s head is flexed, and the baby is upside down. If it’s in that position for weeks, over an extended period, that can create misalignments, then birth itself can be somewhat traumatic.
There’s something called infant torticollis, which I believe is code for a traumatic birth injury. Sometimes when they twist the baby’s neck or pull it to help the baby come out, because they’re not waiting for the baby to just come out on its own, they can stress the neck and then the baby’s head won’t turn or flop. They will notice that the infant is only suckling off one breast, or the baby doesn’t turn, or we’ll see plagiocephaly.
We can help those kids right away and we can start checking their necks. It’s so gentle to check an infant because their necks are cartilaginous. We basically can start them as early as possible. Most moms usually have the baby and after two or three weeks when they’re feeling better and they’re ready to take the baby out into the world, they start coming in and we start doing checkups. It requires some education because the moms don’t know what they don’t know. If they don’t know that a chiropractor could help, then they might not seek chiropractic care.
Chiropractic is important through every stage of growth and development, but we tend to start them as early as possible. When my CA had her baby, she invited us up to the hospital after a long labor and she just said, “Hey, will you check my baby before you go?” And my heart just melts when that happens. But it requires some education.
But like I say, sarcastically, we joke around and say, “From the womb to the tomb,” but if you have a nerve system and there’s stress on it, a chiropractor can help. It doesn’t matter how old you are because there are techniques that are so gentle, there’s light force, there’s non-force techniques, there’s tonal techniques. There are a lot of different ways that we can help these infants and children grow up stronger and be healthier.
Photo Credit: naumoid/Bigstock.com
Dr. Gregg D. Rubinstein, D.C., is a Midtown Manhattan chiropractor with over 30 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 (212) 977-7094 and is located at 119 West 57th St. in New York, NY.
Click here to receive more information & to schedule your consultation.
