Pediatric Chiropractic: Why Get Your Children Checked

Pediatric chiropractic in Chanhassen is a gentle and natural way to ensure proper development and growth, preventing dysfunction from becoming health problems.

Why Get Your Children Checked in Chanhassen

Does this surprise you? Did you think that chiropractic was for people with back or neck pain, who have had a car wreck or have degeneration that has accumulated over the years? While it certainly can be helpful in those scenarios, what if we could rewind the clock as it were and help those people BEFORE they had serious issues?

As Frederick Douglass said, “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”

Chiropractic is truly about identifying and correcting where the spinal vertebrae are misaligned, reducing nerve function. We call this a subluxation.

This may bring to mind photos of severe scoliosis and visibility twisted spines. However, the delicate balance of the body means that when the vertebrae are even slightly shifted out of place, it can cause pressure and inflammation.

This means that anyone with a spine should be checked by a chiropractor: the only professional trained in the adjustment of spinal subluxations.

Let’s look at how these subluxations happen in babies and children.

How Birth (& Life) Affect the Spine

As many as 80% of babies are subluxated at birth. That stat can be shocking! Dr. Godfrey Gutmann, a German physician discovered this when he conducted a study of over 1,000 newborns shortly after birth. Over 80% of these infants had suffered trauma to their necks, causing misalignment in their tiny cervical vertebrae.

Birth is a big ordeal whether it’s natural and medicated, cesarean and vaginal, with and without interventions. Think about the journey down the birth canal and under the pubic bone. Even if the baby is in an ideal position and the mother’s pelvis is perfectly aligned, there is still an enormous force of contractions and pushing on the baby’s neck.

Interventions such as forceps and vacuum extraction add another possibility for the spine to become misaligned. Even in a cesarean, babies may be pulled in ways that are less than ideal for their neck and spine.

This is just one reason why we encourage parents to get their newborns checked by a pediatric chiropractor.

Fun fact: Babies get secondary curves in their spines as they pass developmental milestones. This is why Dr. Bethany recommends having your baby checked when they hold their head up, roll, sit, crawl, stand and walk.

These actions activate the spine and are signals that the secondary curves are developing. We want to catch any issues early and correct them right away so your child can make these transitions as smoothly as possible.

As babies and toddlers grow and develop, life continues to affect their spine. This could be as simple as sitting down hard on their bottom and tailbone. If you’ve watched a toddler play, you’ve undoubtedly seen them roll, jump, bounce and fall. All of these healthy and natural activities may result in misalignments.

As children grow, so do the stressors. There are heavy backpacks, accidents on bikes, less nutritious food choices, long hours studying, emotional and mental stressors. All of these may be large or small traumas to their posture and spine.

Are your kids and teens in sports? Chiropractic makes a big difference in their performance, balance and reflexes (so they aren’t injured as easily) and recovery time if and when they do get injured.