Chiropractic Care During Pregnancy and for Children
How Chiropractic Care Offers Relief and Enjoyment
My name is Dr. Kristen Zumberger and I am a Chiropractor at Everybody’s Health in Mason.
I always knew I wanted to be a Chiropractor and actually began seeing one when I was just a newborn (thank you mom!). When I discovered the benefits of Chiropractic, I was hooked. The best part about what I do is that I get to help people get back to doing the things that they enjoy doing, PAIN-free!
Let me simplify in a few sentences what Chiropractors do, although I could write forever on this topic. Chiropractors find areas and joints within the body that aren’t moving as they should and use an adjustment to restore proper motion into the joints. This allows the body and the brain to communicate more efficiently and ultimately leads to optimal function of the body. So how does this relate to a mother during pregnancy?
Pregnancy is such a special experience and I truly want the mother to be able to ENJOY the process and all that comes with it, instead of having to constantly worry about all of the aches and pains as the body changes. Your body goes through a plethora of changes to accommodate for growing baby that lead to extra stress placed on areas of your spine including the pelvis, low back, mid back, and neck which can cause pain in those areas.
The goal of Chiropractic during pregnancy is to counteract these stressful forces and maintain proper motion and function in the body during pregnancies to help relieve discomfort.
So what are some of the things we can help you with?
Reduce Low Back Pain, Sciatica, and Round Ligament Pain:
We have a special table that allows moms to lay on their stomach while we do all the work. Gentle adjustments and soft tissue techniques are used to make sure joints of the pelvis, sacrum, and lumbar spine are moving properly in order to relieve tension of attaching muscles an d ligaments supporting the growing baby (i.e the Pelvic floor muscles, Piriformis, and Round Ligament). Mothers also love when we incorporate Kinesiotape to support the weight of the belly to take tension off of the round ligament.
Reduce Labor time, and Reduce Back Labor:
Regular chiropractic adjustments throughout pregnancy helps make sure the pelvis and sacrum stays aligned and the pelvic floor stays relaxed ready for delivery and pushing. We also focus on exercises throughout pregnancy to ensure this as well. Labor becomes much more difficult when the pelvis and sacrum are not in the correct position and the pelvic floor becomes taut as this limits the amount of space the baby has and the amount of force the baby needs to push through to enter the canal.
Reduce opportunity for Breech Positioning:
Our goal with adjustments and soft tissue work as described above is to make sure baby has enough room to do what it needs to do. Most of the time baby knows inherently when it needs to “flip” and what we are finding is that usually there is something that is getting in babies’ way, i.e not enough space. Regular chiropractic adjustments ensure that there is enough space for baby to be able to flip when the time comes
Chiropractic can help you adapt to all of these changes listed above so that you don’t have to suffer from aches and pains and can ENJOY the process with your family and loved ones.
Chiropractic and Children
Although the basic premise of chiropractic is the same no matter what age the patient, the ever-growing and changing active little bodies of children have distinct needs depending on their developmental stage.
There are many differences that are important to note between adjustments of an adult and that of a child.
The first difference is that the pressure used on an infant is MUCH different than the pressure used to adjust an adult. Treatments are extremely gentle and there is no “thrusting” but simple vibrations or light pumps from the finger tips are used to induce motion into a restricted joint.
Like adults, children experience joint restrictions and spinal misalignments. These restrictions and misalignments can come from trauma during childbirth or from the stress of learning to raise their head, sit up, or falls as they begin crawling and walking. As a child continues to develop through important developmental phases its important that the babies body is functioning properly, so they can continue to develop proficiently.
Another major difference is that pain is not usually a primary complaint of a child. This can make it more difficult for parents to know when kids need to visit their chiropractor. There are certain “clues” that we can watch for to gain more understanding in this area, such as postural changes, only wanting to breast feed from one side, being off-balance, always tilting their head to one side, and running with a limp.
A chiropractor can help your child heal, grow, and thrive in optimal health.
Side effects of chiropractic care and children include:
- Improved sleep
- Improved behavior and attitude
- Improved immune system function.
Chiropractic has been shown to help with:
- Problems latching or breastfeeding
- Ear infections
- Bedwetting
- Colic
- Constipation/diarrhea
- Torticollis
- GI issues
- Allergies
- And much more!
Thanks for making it to the end of this blog post! For more information regarding chiropractic during pregnancy or regarding chiropractic and children feel free to visit www.icpa4kids.org or contact me at 513.754.0050 or via mail at dr.zumberger@everybodyshealth.net with any questions.
