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Everything You Need To Know About Chiropractic Care & Kids

November 9, 2020

As a parent, you’ll want to do everything you can to protect your child — from the moment of birth through to their adolescence. For those holding their newborns in their arms, one of the things you might be worried about is the muscle and joint pain your bundle of joy will face as they get older. Or maybe your grown child is suffering from back pain now, as a result of a strain or sports-related injury.

Pain of the muscles, tendons, and joints isn’t just an ailment localized to older individuals. If you want to start protecting your newborn from this pain or you need to find your child some help, a pediatric chiropractor may be the best option.

While you may not have thought that chiropractors could help kids or babies, there is an entire specialty of the field dedicated to treating younger patients. In this article, we’ll review the benefits of pediatric chiropractic care, the differences between treating adults and children and address any misconceptions surrounding this type of treatment.

Benefits of Pediatric Chiropractic Care

It may not seem like it, but your child’s body is placed under an enormous amount of physical and emotional stress as it grows. Hormones are raging, growth spurts are occurring and injury is common. However, regularly visiting a pediatric chiropractor will ensure your child’s spine is properly aligned and their joints and muscles are stretched and limber.

In addition, pediatric chiropractic care started in infancy can improve babies’ sleeping schedules, boost their immune systems, and lead to increased brain development.

Treatment Differences: Adults vs Children

If you’ve been to a chiropractor before or watched videos on how they manipulate the body, it can be hard to picture this treatment being done on a child, much less an infant. However, there are some key differences in chiropractic treatment between adults and children.

While many adults choose to visit a chiropractor to treat symptoms, a child will receive chiropractic care to prevent symptoms from occurring in the first place. The child’s treatment will be focused on correcting posture and increasing flexibility. Conversely, adult treatment requires more focused and intense manipulation of certain joints.

Furthermore, the amount of pressure exerted by the chiropractor is different for an adult when compared to a child. Since an adult is fully grown, a chiropractor will exert a high amount of force during treatment because the adult’s body can handle it.

For a child or baby, there is little to no exertion on the part of the chiropractor. Instead, the chiropractor will slightly manipulate and move the limbs and back of the child. Again, the focus here is corrective treatment rather than symptomatic treatment, so a more holistic and less-intensive session is required.

Common Misconceptions

Regardless of the demonstrated benefits of pediatric chiropractic care, there are still a number of misconceptions attributed to the practice. The main one is that this type of treatment is not needed in children. However, as noted above, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

As children grow, their bodies rapidly change, possibly leading to ailments down the road if problems occur during this vital developmental stage. A pediatric chiropractor is there to regularly adjust your child’s body from as early as infancy, to ensure their bodies are aligned, limber and well-balanced.

Another misconception has to do with the assumption that pediatric chiropractic care is quite new and untested. Not only is this false, as there are records of spinal manipulation in children from the early 1900s, but the positive impact of this treatment has been proven many times over. Children of all ages, from infancy through to adolescence, benefit greatly from chiropractic care — as it strengthens their bodies and minds before adulthood.

Getting Started

If you are a parent or guardian of an infant, child or adolescent, hopefully you have been convinced of the benefits of pediatric chiropractic care. This safe and effective practice has one goal in mind: strengthening the mental and physical state of your child to prepare them for adulthood.

Dahl Family Chiropractic, located in Madison, WI, offers specialized and trusted pediatric chiropractic care. Give us a call at 608-829-0074 or visit our website and fill out our contact form to get started today!

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We offer services including spinal adjustments, spinal decompression/traction therapy, rehab therapy, electric stimulation of affected muscles in the body, dry needling, nutritional counseling,

infrared sauna, or recommendations on lifestyle changes!