By Michelle Tell Peck, DC, CACCP
Safeguarding our family’s health through wellness habits is one of the greatest gifts we as parents can give our children. To achieve wellness, we nourish our families naturally and seek more safety and quality from our products, our environment, and our healthcare providers. Your child’s health involves quality nutrition and sleep, exercise, toxin avoidance, stress reduction, happy and positive thoughts, and a well-functioning nervous system. We must nurture all of these for our children to be well balanced and able to express their full potential; choosing a wellness-focused pediatric-trained chiropractor will help you nurture your child most effectively. Also, a wellness-based chiropractor will educate, counsel, and navigate parents towards improved natural health decisions.
An irritated nervous system can be the cause of many health complaints. Chiropractors are the only health care professionals qualified to detect, correct, and prevent nervous system dysfunction caused by spinal misalignments. Spinal misalignments may lead to many common health complaints in children:
Colic
Earaches
Nursing difficulties
Reflux
Constipation
Sleep problems
Bedwetting
ADHD
Behavioral issues
Postural problems
Growing pains
Asthma and allergies
Masking symptoms with drugs with worrisome side effects is neither our only nor often our best option. Instead, chiropractors help to support our children’s own natural ability to heal by approaching the root cause. Because the nervous system coordinates the function of all bodily systems, our children’s health may be impaired by nerve interference. Chiropractic adjustments help to restore nerve function, thus allowing the body the ability to operate at full potential. Your chiropractor will also work with you and other practitioners when needed to address other possible contributing lifestyle factors, such as exposure to toxins or poor nutrition. Then, as your children’s nerve function improves, true wellness is often quite noticeable! Their bowels may work more regularly, they may become calmer and more focused, and their immunity may be strengthened with noticeably fewer colds.
Reassuringly for parents, pediatric chiropractic adjusting procedures are gentle and specifically modified to fit a child’s size, weight, and unique spinal condition. Adjusting a child involves specific pressure equal to that used to check the ripeness of a tomato. Most parents report that their children enjoy their chiropractic adjustments and even look forward to their visits!
Although all chiropractors are qualified to adjust people of all ages, some chiropractors have taken specialized post-graduate pediatric training through the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association. Find one for your family by searching your zip code at www.icpa4kids.org. And, importantly, most insurances do cover chiropractic care for children, or reasonable cash payment plans are usually available, making chiropractic care an affordable and wise healthcare option for most families.