When thinking about who receives chiropractic care, many people initially think of adults. However, everyone can benefit from regular chiropractic adjustments! Including children, pregnant women, adults, geriatrics, and anyone in between. In fact, chiropractic care for children is an amazing and safe way to treat your child’s ailments.
But… as a parent, you have to wonder, how does chiropractic care help my child? Are the adjustments I see online with adults done the same way as on a child? Is it safe? These are all valid questions, and will be debunked in this blog.
Benefits of Chiropractic Care for Children
There are many benefits of chiropractic care for children! To name a few, chiropractors can help your child sleep better, relieve ear infections, improve their behavior, promote proper growth, improve their digestive health and their overall well-being.
chiropractic care for children at Midland Sports Rehab and Freeland Sports Rehab in Midland, Freeland, and Saginaw, MI
- Ear infections: Ear infections are quite common with small kids and typically occur due to fluid build up in the inner ear. Chiropractic care helps alleviate pressure from the fluid build up by encouraging the fluid to drain.
- Better sleep: Chiropractic therapy can address issues that may be causing your child to get poor sleep. Chiropractic adjustments can relieve uncomfortableness and improve relaxation so that kids can sleep soundly through the night.
- Alleviate pain: Children are not always good at expressing pain. Such as when they have an ear infection, they can become irritable or tug on their ears. Chiropractic care can help alleviate the pain that they don’t know how to express. This decrease in pain helps improve their mood, so that they can go back to being their happy and playful selves.
- Digestion: Chiropractic Therapy has been shown to improve digestive health in children, as well as adults. Misalignments in the spine may affect the nervous system’s ability to regulate digestion and function properly. There are many parents that report that their children have better bowel movements and less discomfort after being seen for an adjustment.
- Behavior & attention: When the spine is misaligned, it can affect your nervous system. Your nervous system is what regulates your behavior, attention, and emotion. Chiro therapy can realign your child’s spine, potentially resulting in better mood, behavior, and attention!
Chiropractic Adjustments for Children
To answer the question of ‘are adjustments the same on my child as the ones on an adult?’ No, treatment done on infants and small children use much lower pressure than those done on an adult. Even adjustments done on tweens and teens are not the same force as an adjustment done on adults because they are still growing.
chiropractic care for children at Midland Sports Rehab and Freeland Sports Rehab in Midland, Freeland, and Saginaw, MI
You may be wondering… what does growing have to do with anything? When you are still growing, your bones have not completely calcified yet. When babies are born, they have cartilaginous bones that can be described as ‘flexy’ or ‘bendy’ bones. As your child grows, the bones harden. Once the bones stop growing at about 16-18 years old, they still increase in bone density until your mid/late 20s.
When adjusting children, you don’t use too much force because you don’t need to with smaller bodies! Children are more sensitive to pressure and there is less force required to achieve the desired adjustment versus an adult whose bones are fully calcified and developed.
If your child is suffers with ear infections, poor sleep, pain and discomfort, or digestion issues, consider chiropractic care for a safe, natural solution! At Midland Sports Rehab and Freeland Sports Rehab in Midland, Freeland, and Saginaw, MI, our chiropractic doctors are the very best in the area at treating patients of all ages. Book an appointment today with the best chiropractors in mid-Michigan!