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As the heroes and heroines of tomorrow grow at astonishing rates, they often heel and recover faster then they became hurt or ill. Within the first 5 years of a child’s developing life they may undergo a series of more or less 2000 falls, of which 200-400 are considered to be severe or even dangerous. They run, fall and rise again, not always without any consequences.
One of the most common things we hear in relation to chiropractic for children is: “My child has no pain, why do they need to go to a Chiropractor?” The reality is that pain is often the last symptom to appear in relation to a health condition. The absence of symptoms is also not the definition of health.
The compounding effect over time of subluxations and compensatory patterns which develop as a result thereof, give rise to health problems at later ages of our lives. Making the decision to have your children regularly checked and adjusted if necessary from a young age is vital to a happy, healthy, informed and adapting child.
"The only true subluxation you ever see must be in a child prior to the age of seven years. If this subluxation goes uncorrected it becomes a primary source of stimulus through life, but the tombs of distortion, which form from one traumatic experience to the other, soon bury this primary subluxation under that 'tomb of distortions.' The subluxation that all of us worry about occurred some time between birth and the seventh year of life, and the remedy would of course be careful chiropractic care from birth through the seventh year of life."
The spine when viewed from behind should be straight. If it curves to either or both sides to a significant degree then the term Scoliosis is used. One of the most common times for scoliosis to develop is during puberty, known then as Idiopathic Adolescent Scoliosis. The term idiopathic is important as it means “of unknown origin”. A strong opinion within chiropractic is that the growth rates of the various structures varies, meaning that either the muscles or bones, or tendons or ligaments create a lateral pull as they differently increase their length. Since there are many growth spurts that occur during puberty, these are the times when the risk is highest for these imbalances to show up.
Since chiropractic achieves two things: normalisation of spine movement and improvement in brain / body communication, it is hopefully clear why we see chiropractic as an important part of this time of life. Chiropractic is NOT a treatment to straighten the spine, rather it is focused as maximizing and normalise function so that the body functions as good as it can, and has a greater chance to restore and maintain balance by itself.
Solving complaints at a young age stimulates the development of your child and greatly reduces the chance of similar complaints occurring in the future. Children often recover faster than adults and usually improvement can be seen after a few adjustments. The Chiropractic adjustment methods used are adapted to the age of your child and your child and are extremely safe.
References
1. Miller, J. E., Miller, L., Sulesund, A., Yevtuschenko, A., 2009. Contribution of chiropractic therapy to resolving suboptimal breastfeeding: a case series of 114 infants. Journal of manipulative and physiological therapeutics 32 (8): 670-4
2. Marchand, A.M. 2013. A Proposed Model With Possible Implications for Safety and Technique Adaptations for Chiropractic Spinal Manipulative Therapy for Infants and Children. Journal of manipulative and physiological therapeutics 3. Alcantara, J., Ohm, J., Kunz, D., 2009. The safety and effectiveness of pediatric chiropractic: a survey of chiropractors and parents in a practice-based research network. Explore, 5, pp. 290-295.
3. Miller, J.E., Phillips, H.J., 2009. Long-term effects of infantile colic: a survey comparison of chiropractic treatment and non-treatment groups. Journal of manipulative and physiological therapeutics, 32 (8), pp. 635-638.
