There are a lot of different reasons for parents to bring their infants to see a chiropractor. Some parents bring them in because they have been educated, and they know that chiropractic is a holistic practice, and that it benefits the overall health of the nerve system. Your nerve system being the master system, controlling and coordinating every stage of growth and development, and every stage of healing. Your nerve system, which is responsible for running and regulating the body, is extremely important. What we find is that stress, tension, poor posture, accidents, falls, over time, accumulate in the body and create misalignments that we call subluxations. When we have subluxations, the nerves that the bones are protecting inside the spinal cord can actually get irritated and change the way messages get transmitted from the brain to the rest of the body. So it is extremely important to enhance nerve system functions, since the nerve system is what is controlling every phase of growth and development in an infant.

If you have ever watched an infant learning to walk, they start to fall 10, 20, 30 times a day. As they get older, they start roughhousing with their siblings. They play sports. Those things can start to cause misalignments in the spine and put pressure on the nerves. Then it can cause painful conditions or it can contribute to scoliosis and other types of alignment situations. So it is really about general spine care, throughout life, to make sure that the spine and nerve system stay healthy.

People understand that if they brush and floss, and see a dentist, that their mouth stays healthy throughout the course of their life, so people bring infants and children to see a dentist. Well, the bones of the spine are made of the same stuff and react in a similar way, and can degenerate, over time, with misalignment. If you get those kids checked periodically, whether they are infants or younger children, it is going to improve the overall function of their nerve system, maintain better alignment, make sure these kids grow up nice and straight and strong, because everyone’s heard the adage, and heard me say it a million times, “as the twig is bent, so grows the tree.”

So if there is poor alignment in the spine, the child might not grow up straight and might have a curvature of the spine, which can contribute to more irritation to the nerve system later. It is still important, through every stage of growth and development, and it doesn’t matter how old you are, chiropractic adjustments can benefit the infant, the child, and the older adult. We treat people in our office that are as old as 90 and kids as early as the first or second week of life. It is an absolute honor to actually check these infants and contribute to them leading an active, healthy, drug-free life.

Chiropractic is holistic. We don’t use drugs. There is no surgery. It is just a great way to keep your spine and nerve system healthy throughout the course of your lifetime.