Pediatric Care
Pediatric Chiropractic Treatments from Newborn Through the Teen Years
Pediatric care at Cima Health complements the care your child receives from their pediatrician. Your child’s pediatrician will treat disease, prescribe medications, and do well-baby visits. As a pediatric chiropractor, Dr. Natalie has a different scope of focus – on your child’s overall wellness, and preventive care.
Your children are in good hands when they come to visit Dr. Natalie. She is a member of the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association (ICPA) and is associated with The Cradle Coach and The Cradle Coach Academy. Her goal is to help educate parents on how to your children as holistically as possible when they are sick or hurting. Dr. Natalie and her 3 children have been getting adjustments since the day they were born.
Conditions a Pediatric Chiropractor Treats
When your child is struggling or hurting, you’ll do whatever you can to help them feel better. While visiting the pediatrician may be appropriate for disease or acute illness, a visit to the pediatric chiropractor can help with several wellness issues and developmental issues. It starts with a thorough exam of your child to pinpoint the underlying cause(s) of their symptoms.
With young children all the way through the teen years, Dr. Natalie will explain to them what she’s going to do, walking them through each step. Usually, Mom or Dad becomes a patient first, then brings their kids in. Seeing their parents comfortable in our environment is typically enough to put your children at ease.
Some of the pediatric conditions we treat at Cima Health include:
ADHD
ADHD, or attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder behaviors may benefit from chiropractic treatment. Releasing pressure on the spine, joints, and bones can promote healthy brain development. Studies show a correlation between chiropractic care and a reduction in ADHD symptoms.
Asthma
The first time you see your child suffer from an asthma attack, it can be terrifying. Your pediatrician may recommend medications, including an inhaler, or at-home treatments. They will also tell you that prevention is the best way to manage asthma. Chiropractic adjustments can help prevent asthma attacks by realigning your child’s spine to allow the lungs to function as they should.
Back Pain
Back pain in children can be caused by poor posture, a backpack that is too heavy or not adjusted properly, injury, and several other things. We’ll get to the root cause of the pain and make chiropractic adjustments to relieve the pain, as well as recommendations to prevent the pain from reoccurring.
Colic
When your baby is more than fussy and won’t stop crying even after you’ve fed them, changed a diaper, made sure they’re not too hot and not too cold, and soothed them, it may be that they have colic. Colic will usually go away on its own. But if you’re at your wit’s end because your baby cries for hours, you should know that chiropractic treatment can help. Numerous studies show chiropractic adjustments can help decrease the number of hours a day your baby cries.
Congestion
Pediatric chiropractic adjustments can help relieve congestion by draining fluids. Whether the congestion is caused by a common cold or allergies, we’ll get to the root cause and help your child (and you) find relief.
Constipation
Constipation can be extremely painful for infants and young children. Chiropractic is a safe alternative to using medications to help give relief. We use very light adjustments to the child’s spine and neck to relieve constipation. Remember – digestive health starts with a health spine.
Ear Infections
Ear infections are very common in infants and young children. That’s because in children, the Eustachian tubes in the ears are narrower and more horizontal, which makes it harder for them to drain and more likely to get clogged and infected. Pediatric chiropractic adjustments realign the bones in the neck to stop the irritation of the nerves that control the muscles around the tubes. This allows the tubes to relax, open, and drain fluid away, eliminating the source of the ear infection.
Diarrhea
The opposite of constipation, diarrhea is when your child has frequent, loose, runny, or explosive stools. This can cause dehydration in a baby and extreme discomfort and embarrassment for an older child. A chiropractic adjustment may be appropriate if diarrhea is a regular occurrence for your child and not directly associated with an illness.
Headaches
If your young child, tween, or teen has frequent headaches or chronic migraines, pediatric chiropractic treatments can help reduce the frequency and reduce the pain. You might be interested in reading a case study from The Journal of Upper Cervical Chiropractic Research.
Inability to Sleep
When your baby or child doesn’t “sleep like a baby,” their lack of sleep affects their health, and the whole household. If your child can’t fall asleep or stay asleep, chiropractic care may help. A simple adjustment can help relieve stress on the spine, relieve pain, and relax the body, priming it for a better night’s sleep.
Nausea
Nausea can be caused by spinal subluxations putting pressure on the vagus nerve or brainstem. This can send the wrong signals to the digestive system, causing nausea or vomiting. A simple adjustment can help get everything back in alignment and ease your child’s nausea.
Reflux
Reflux, spitting up, or vomiting in an infant can be quite concerning. Dr. Natalie can help reduce the occurrence of reflux by aligning the spine and optimizing the nervous system. She can also go over some tips to help find the triggers for your child’s reflux and remove those triggers.
Text Neck
Text neck can affect tweens and teens who live on their phones. This neck pain can be corrected with chiropractic adjustments as well as improvements in posture. Instead of sitting hunched over the phone with rounded shoulders, we teach kids to sit up straight and to hold the phone up closer to eye level.
Torticollis
Torticollis is a condition where your baby’s neck muscles cause their head to tilt and twist to one side. They may have tight, swollen neck muscles with limited neck movement. It is a common condition in newborns and children, and is easily treatable with pediatric chiropractic care and gentle at-home stretching exercises.
Types of Pediatric Care We Provide
Our pediatric care focuses on pediatric chiropractic, but as with our adult patients, we also have a holistic approach to whole-body wellbeing. Some of the areas of pediatric care include:
Chiropractic Care
This includes adjustments of the spine, neck, and extremities along with other chiropractic techniques as indicated. It’s the core of our pediatric care services.
Milestone Tracking
We track your child’s developmental progress by tracking important milestones, and offering chiropractic care as needed. Milestones come quickly in the first year of your baby’s life, from rolling over to sitting up to crawling to walking. We also track for proper growth in height and weight and make treatment suggestions.
Nutrition
Helping ensure your child(ren) are eating a tasty, balanced diet will go a long way towards them achieving lifelong, whole-body wellness. We’ll educate your child on the importance of making healthy food choices, and we can work with you as a parent to help with meal planning and grocery shopping to improve the health of your whole family.
Ear Irrigation
Ear irrigation is a routine procedure that can remove excess ear wax as well as foreign bodies from your child’s ears. Young children routinely stick things in their ears that they shouldn’t. Chiropractic care can also help reduce the frequency of ear infections by improving ear drainage.
Gait Training
Gait training is a safe intervention to improve your child’s walking ability by improving form, balance, and posture. From the moment your baby takes their first steps to the day they walk across the stage to get their high school diploma, functional gait training can help them if they have any sort of gait abnormality.
Sports Injury Prevention and Rehabilitation
On the sports injury section, mention the 24/7 gym and physical therapy, and link to those pages. Mention alternative treatment that harnesses the body’s innate restorative power.
Benefits of Pediatric Chiropractic Care
Pediatric chiropractic care gets your child started out on the path to whole-body wellbeing from a young age. And since we include nutrition information, sports injury prevention, and proper posture as part of our care, it teaches them healthy habits they can use for a lifetime.
Those are the big picture benefits. Some more specific benefits of chiropractic care for your children can include:
- Supports their immune system and digestive health
- Supports their nervous system
- Improves sleep
- Improved behavior
- Promotes proper growth
- Fosters brain development
Survey of Pediatric Chiropractors and Parents of Their Patients
If you’re considering pediatric chiropractic care as a complementary and alternative medicine for musculoskeletal issues, behavioral issues, or digestive issues but you’re still not quite sure, you may be interested in a recent survey of parents and the chiropractors. It focused on the safety and effectiveness of pediatric chiropractic care.
It shows there were no complications from treatment, and a high rate of improvement with regard to the children’s presenting complaint.
Pediatric Chiropractic FAQs
1. Q: Is chiropractic safe for newborns?
A: Yes, it is, when the chiropractor has specialty training like Dr. Natalie does. Using gentle pressure from just the fingertips is enough to treat your baby.
2. Q: Why would an infant need a chiropractor?
A: The labor and delivery process can be difficult for both mom and baby, especially if your labor was long or you had complications. The baby’s spine and pelvis may become misaligned – and a gentle adjustment can resolve those issues and get baby off to a great start. An infant with colic could also benefit from seeing a chiropractor.
3. Q: What are the risks with an infant chiropractor?
A: The risk is minimal if your infant chiropractor has received the appropriate specialized training like Dr. Natalie has.
4. Q: What does a pediatric chiropractor do?
A: A pediatric chiropractor makes chiropractic adjustments of the neck, spine, and pelvis on infants, toddlers, young children, tweens, and teens. But these adjustments are much gentler than they are on adults. Just the pressure of the fingers for infants.
5. Q: How long does a pediatric chiropractor appointment last?
A: An initial appointment may take between 30-60 minutes, depending on the age of your child and any issues they are experiencing. The doctor will do a full physical evaluation, and ask you and your child (if feasible) about your pregnancy and delivery if you’re bringing your baby in, or if anything hurts when it’s an older child visiting. Follow-up visits will be much shorter, around 15-20 minutes.
6. Q: When to use a pediatric chiropractor?
A: You can take your child to a pediatric chiropractor at any age for general wellness visits. For babies, this could include visits at milestones such as raising their head, rolling over, crawling, and walking. You might also want to visit to help with digestive issues, sleep issues, back pain, and to prevent sports injury, to name just a few occasions.
Read What Our Patients Have to Say
Start Your Child on the Path to Whole-Body Wellbeing
Whether your child is an infant, a toddler, a tween, or a teen, they can benefit from pediatric chiropractic care. Start them out on the path to whole-body wellbeing, and book a wellness appointment today!
