by Dr. Lauryn Brunclik , Blue Hills Chiropractic, Cumberland, WI
There are few days that go by in my clinic without a patient saying, “Wow, you see a lot of kids here.” This is usually more a question than a statement. I can hear their thoughts as they see parents hand their infants to me and observe siblings fight over who goes first for their adjustment. “Kids that young have back pain?” “She doesn’t crack that baby, does she?”
As a pediatric chiropractor, I see children of all ages every day. Children need adjustments for obvious reasons: they fall (a lot) and are usually much more active than adults. They are also growing rapidly. If bones of the spine are out of alignment during important years of developmental and neurological growth, it can have a negative impact long term.
Besides the obvious reasons, both research and parent experiences support chiropractic care for children for symptoms such as colic, reflux/GERD, constipation, ear infections, asthma, allergies, growing pains, headaches, stomach pains, decreased immune systems, ADHD, sleeping disturbances, scoliosis prevention, and even more. You may need to reread that list of symptoms for it to fully sink in. People are taking their children to a chiropractor for drug-free relief for all of that! Typically this is where that patient from earlier says, “I wish I would have known about this when MY children were young.”
Pediatric adjustments are significantly different than adult adjustments. For a newborn, an adjustment is simply light pressure, no more than you would apply to your eye. A sleeping baby will rarely wake and often fully relaxes into my hands. There’s no cracking or twisting at any point. Pediatric adjustments are gentle, safe, and rarely ever hurt. A video of children getting adjusted is available on our website www.bluehillschiropractic.com.
To find a pediatric chiropractor in your area visit icpa4kids.org/Find-a-Chiropractor/.