Chiropractic Care and Children
Parents know best. They know what’s best for their children in terms of healthcare. This is the reason why more and more kids, healthy and with symptoms alike, are being brought to chiropractic clinics for consultation and care. Most often, these parents are themselves recipients of chiropractic care and are convinced of its benefits in helping relieve many symptoms of dysfunctions and in bringing out the body’s optimal function and performance.
Top Reasons for Bringing Children to a Chiropractor
The common reasons for parents to bring their children to a chiropractor include:
- To improve and support their child’s general health and wellbeing.
- To encourage the development of their child’s brain and nerves, or for good plasticity.
- To help boost their child’s immunity and prevent the incidence of colds, infections, earaches and other illnesses.
- To assist with the treatment of colic and symptoms of irritable baby syndrome.
- To promote proper spinal posture.
- To provide relief with respiratory symptoms such as breathing difficulties, asthma, and allergies.
- To help improve the child’s concentration ability.
- To help address behavioral disorders.
- To aid in digestive problems.
- To address sleep issues and bed-wetting problems.
As with adults, children’s conditions can come from spinal related issues. In fact, some of the spinal problems seen in adults trace their beginnings from birth or during their childhood years. Even natural birthing methods or normal deliveries can cause stress in an infant’s spine and in the nerve system, which is newly developing. Children’s conditions, such as colic, nursing difficulties, breathing problems, allergic reactions, sleep disturbances, and chronic infections are often traced to stress in the nerve system. Parents, who realize the significant spinal trauma a baby can suffer during birth, bring their newborns for chiropractic check right away.
The source of spinal and nerve issues continue as the infant grows. Learning to hold the head up, crawl, sit and walk are activities that can affect spinal alignment. These are important times to have a child checked by a chiropractor.
The succeeding years in the child’s development will be as risky for the child’s spine. Significant spinal misalignments or subluxations can potentially occur as the child learns to ride a bike, skate or play rough games. Misalignments may result in pain or symptoms immediately, in which case, appropriate examination and prompt care may be given. It will be more unfortunate if the misalignment or injury does not result in pain or symptom immediately after an incident and it is ignored. Injuries neglected during this period, may cause more serious problems later in life.
Trauma during childhood will negatively affect the person’s future spine development leading to impaired function of the nervous system. And any interference to the nerve system will be detrimental to the body’s normal functions and prevent it from performing at its optimum level.
Chiropractic Care for Children
Chiropractors do not treat children’s conditions or diseases. Their expertise and experience focuses on checking the children’s spines for misalignments that impair the function of the nerve system and affect the body’s overall function, consequently. The vertebrae in the spine are where the spinal cord is housed. The spinal cord acts as a brain extension carrying vital information coming from the brain to the different body parts and feeding information back to the brain again. Subluxation within the vertebrae interferes with the important ability of the nerve to transmit vital information between the brain and the rest of the body. Nerve interference may impair any aspect of the child’s health because the nerve system coordinates and controls the function of every and all systems in the body. Chiropractic adjustments restore nerve system function in the child’s body. The procedures are modified specifically to suit a child’s size and unique condition of the spine. They are gentle and appropriate to the child’s spinal structures.
Choosing a doctor for a child is always chanllenging, but your child’s health and wellbeing are priceless. That is why every available means to give your child the best treatment and care possible should be utilized. Chiropractic care offers a natural, safe and effective option to bring children relief and full health potential to successfully meet the challenges ahead of them.