As a young girl, Los Angeles chiropractor, Dr. Christine Anderson, loved taking care of the neighborhood children and hoped she would have a few children herself one day, not realizing that she would enjoy caring for hundreds! Dr. Anderson is now on a mission to educate families on why children need pediatric chiropractic.
Spinal care for kids can be compared to regular dental checkups. You bring your kids to the dentist on a regular basis to detect any problems with their teeth before they become big issues. Our pediatric chiropractor encourages parents to bring their children in to have their spines and posture checked on a regular basis, whether or not the child is experiencing any problems. This is so that she may detect issues early on and treat them and perhaps even prevent problems from ever occurring.
Think about your own health issues. Wouldn’t it have been amazing if they could have been prevented by regular chiropractic care as you were growing up? Dr. Anderson can still help you work with what you’ve got, but even more important, she can help your children achieve their optimum health and keep it that way, developing healthy spinal and lifestyle habits for their entire life.
Babies, infants, toddlers, and children can all be safely adjusted by those trained in their care. Of course, adjusting their spines will require modifications since the spine of a young child is different than that of an adult and does not need as much force. The amount of pressure it takes to adjust the vertebrae of a baby is equivalent to the force you would use to check the ripeness of a tomato. Dr. Anderson will often get on the floor and “play” with a child, adjusting them all the while and newborns might even sleep through the entire pediatric chiropractic adjustment!
Newborns, babies, and young children also benefit from craniosacral therapy, a non-force, energetic technique which releases any tension in the dura, the covering around the brain and spinal cord. The first year of life is crucial to your child’s spinal development. The spine grows 50% and the brain grows to at least 60% of its adult size. The curves of the neck and low-back also develop during this time and if this fails to happen, there is a greater likelihood that your child could develop scoliosis, or curvature of the spine. This period of rapid growth is when problems are likely to begin, but can take years or decades to manifest as symptoms.
The best way to ensure there are no obstructions to your child achieving optimal health and well-being is to bring them in as soon as possible after their birth. Dr. Anderson will often attend the birth of her pregnant patients. After adjusting mom during labor, she will check the newborn and give them their first chiropractic adjustment soon after being born. Wellness checkups should be at least once a month for the first year of life to make sure that the nervous system is developing properly.
When children start walking, running, and playing sports, adjustments may be more often depending on how much trauma their bodies are subjected to. If your child does have any issues — whether they are physical or emotional, chiropractic care may be able to help.
The chiropractic philosophy is that the nervous system controls all the functions in the body — a fact published in “Grey’s Anatomy.” If you remove any interference to the nervous system with a specific, gentle adjustment, then the body has the ability to self-heal and self-regulate. If your child has colic, ear aches, rashes, sleeping problems, or behavior issues, their body is telling you that something is out of balance and not working right. You have the choice of either medicating that symptom or finding out what is causing the problem.
As your Los Angeles pediatric chiropractor, Dr. Anderson will delve into the cause of a problem and use chiropractic along with craniosacral therapy, homeopathy, and nutrition to bring the body into balance. More and more parents are seeing firsthand the benefits of pediatric chiropractic for their children and the entire family. Dr. Anderson is now seeing the babies who started with the start of her practice in 1990 go off to college. Soon, they will be bringing children of their own in to have their spines checked — and that is a beautiful thing!