Schumacher Chiropractic Clinics

       


If you're a patient at our offices, you no doubt have seen infants and toddlers in the play area , waiting room or more importantly treatment rooms. I have been treating children since I started  practicing 26 years ago, I currently treat many children whose parents were children when I first treated them. Besides making me feel old, it also makes me feel proud to be part of these people's healthcare for a life time. The youngest patient I have treated for colic was only a few days old. Chiropractic care for children is very different than chiropractic care for adults. The adjustments are much softer and gentler because the child's joints are looser and easier to move. For infants, I generally use the Activator adjusting instrument, which can be set at a force so low that you could tolerate the pressure on your eye. As the kids get older they usually prefer to get adjusted with very gentle manual manipulation, they think it's fun and look forward to jumping up on the table. I can't count how many kids over the years were spared from having tubes put in their ears by simply getting their neck adjusted.

In general, the chiropractic adjustment is a very safe procedure for children. With millions of children visiting a chiropractor every year, adverse events (the technical term for injury) are very rare. A study published in 2008 in the prestigious medical journal Pediatrics found only nine incidents of adverse events related to spinal adjustments in children worldwide over the past 100 years, an enviable safety record.

All doctors understand that any form of health care comes with some degree of risk, whether we're talking about a dose of antibiotics or a chiropractic adjustment. As with any procedure, we will discuss the benefits and the risks of the adjustment as it applies to your child. 

Children generally heal much more quickly than adults, so they typically require just a few treatments to restore normal motion to their joints, and thus restore normal function to their nervous systems and related end organs.Chiropractors help children heal and attain true health by releasing joints that aren't moving properly or to their fullest capacity. This restores natural nervous system function, correcting symptoms at the root of the problem and optimizing the child's overall health and inherent healing abilities.

Since chiropractors improve the health of the nervous system by removing irritation stemming from the structural elements of the body, chiropractors can help children with a wide range of conditions, from colic to ear infections to asthma. Here are a few of the conditions we commonly treat as you children grow older.
Neonate-Infant:

• Colic/irritability
• Poor sleep
• Nursing problems
• Reflux/spitting up
• Constipation
• Torticollis/head tilt
• Asymmetrical crawl or gait

Toddler and Preschool-Age Child:

•  Ear infections
• Chronic upper respiratory infections
• Asthma
• Growing pains/foot or leg cramping
• Bed-wetting
• Incontinence (bowel or bladder)

School-Age Child and Adolescent:

• Back pain
• Neck pain
• Headaches
• Scoliosis
• Gait abnormalities
• Extremity injuries (chronic ankle sprains, knee pain, shoulder pain, etc.)
• Constipation
• Abdominal pain
• Chronic upper respiratory illness

It's important to remember that chiropractors are more than just back adjusters. Chiropractors are physicians whose scope of practice includes manual therapies (like adjustments and massage), physiotherapies (like ultrasound), exercise and postural advice, herbal and nutritional supplements, and lifestyle and dietary advice. After taking a thorough history and performing a complete examination, our doctors will determine which combination of these therapies will best help your child reach optimal health. Chiropractic physicians and medical physicians complement each other; as a team, they provide complete health care for your child.

If you have questions about chiropractic and your child's health, please call me at 952-931-9867 or respond to this blog. 

Excerpts taken from to your health columnist, Elsie Hewwit DC 1-2010 chiropractic for kids