Your Spinal Health Questions Answered With Dr Debbie Saxton

Sunday 01 June

Advice on all of your spinal problems from Debbie Saxton. Your chance to ask the expert.

Dear Debbie

I recently read your article on pregnancy and noticed the number of conditions you can help babies with. My little boy is now 3, but struggled with colic and sleeplessness for many months. He just seemed very unsettled and not happy with himself. He failed to crawl and has been plagued with colds and many ear infections. Although I hate giving him antibiotics I have had to resort to them many times over the years. I am now wondering if chiropractic would have anything to offer to improve his health. Mrs K

I was particularly struck by this letter as it summarises a common pattern of events. The symptoms that children present with act as a clue to systems within their bodies that are struggling and if unresolved at one age progress on to effect other areas at different ages i.e. we grow into our problems not out of them.

Newborns eat and sleep, that is their job, so if there are early problems in the function of the nervous system then it will show in these two areas. This often progresses onto a failure to crawl and recurrent infections, if left unresolved and the child gets older it often presents next as learning problems, bedwetting, constipation, clumsiness and other signs.

So what is the root cause and how does chiropractic care help?

Through pregnancy or birth the baby can undergo forces and trauma on their very immature spines. Their bones are not developed so offer little protection to the delicate spinal and cranial nerves. Irritation of the nerves is what leads to the symptoms the baby presents with.

The examination is based around movement patterns of the joints and assessing the function of the nervous system. It is very thorough and leaves a clear picture of where problems have arisen. The treatment of babies and children is a specialist area; their treatment is completely different to chiropractic care of the adult. No force or thrust is applied, there are no clicks. A hold technique is used that places no more pressure than you could take on your eyeball and held for a few seconds. When this is done in exactly the right place it resets the function of the nervous system, reactivates normal neurological pathways and the symptoms will resolve.

There is a very strong connection between the function of the immune system and the function of the nervous system, so if one is struggling the other almost certainly will.

From reading the brief summary of symptoms this little boy has suffered with, I would guess there was some trauma at the birth that has left his nervous system struggling ever since. I would urge that he gets checked out or the problem will almost certainly persist and evolve with him.

We check kids’ teeth regularly but nobody ever checks their spines. This is the domain of the paediatric chiropractor and I would encourage all parents to get their children checked at least 2 times a year, to help them grow out of problems not into them.

In the USA midwives work with chiropractors to check mothers through pregnancy and check all newborns to correct any trauma that has occurred at the birth. It would be wonderful if we had this

Debbie Saxton The Family Chiropractic Clinic 13 Leeds Road, Harrogate. HG2 8AW

E-mail: enquiries@family-chiropractors.com Tel. 01423 701777

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