At Sprout Family Chiropractic, we do a lot of education on the birth process and how to make it easier for both Mom and Baby. They don’t call it labor for nothing! Birth can be especially tough on that little neck of a newborn. Getting your child checked for subluxation (or birth injury) is one of the first steps parents can take to ensure your child grows without restriction.
I tell parents as soon as you are comfortable leaving the house with your new baby, come into the office for a check up. It’s never too early. One of my first emergency home visits was for a one day old girl. She had a traumatic birthing experience with a lot of intervention and pulling on her head. As a result, she could not turn her
head to one side. Just imagine, you’ve been on this earth for less than 48 hours, you can’t turn your neck, and therefore can’t eat, sleep, or poop! The home visit adjustment went beautifully. Before I left, baby was turning her head both ways and latching with no issues.
The infant adjustment is super gentle and super safe. This is an understandable concern most new parents have. I describe the pressure I use to adjust a newborn like checking the ripeness of a tomato at the grocery store. No pops and cracks like you see on cringe TikTok compilations. Yikes. I do my best to explain to parents everything I am feeling during my assessment, and walk them through the adjustment before it is given.
One of my greater goals in life is to have every newborn checked for birth injury by a pediatric certified chiropractor. Being checked for subluxation does not mean that every child needs to be adjusted. In the case that a newborn does need an adjustment, the possibilities of what health and developmental problems can be prevented are endless.
Subluxation, or restriction in the motion of a spinal joint most often due to injury, has a negative impact on how the nervous system works. Subluxations are the areas of the spine that chiropractors locate and correct with an adjustment. The nervous system controls everything in our body, and in kids it helps coordinates growth and hitting milestones. When subluxation is left untreated, it has a deleterious effect on development. In practice, I see children subluxated after birth who now present with constipation, reflux, colic, troubles crawling, and so on. Kids do not grow out of these issues, like you may have been told. They grow into other more problematic health concerns. The longer subluxation is present, the deeper grasp it has on the brain body connection. The nervous system learns by repetition. We say, “nerves that fire together wire together.” This means that any action we repeat, whether it’s swinging a golf club, studying for a test, or subluxation constantly sending stress signals to the brain, our nervous system learns and ingrains these patterns. By removing stress from the spine and nervous system with chiropractic adjustments, infants are able to develop as nature intended.
In the end, it’s never too early to have your newborn checked by a pediatric chiropractor!
-Dr. Ian Shepstone, DC CACCP