PREGNANCY AND CHILDREN

Chiropractic if you are pregnant? ABSOLUTELY!! Keeping your spine free from the vertebral subluxation, which causes nerve interference, is one of the best things you can do if your are pregnant. If there’s one group of people who needs chiropractic spinal check-ups more than any other, it’s pregnant women.
CHIROPRACTIC FOR YOUR BODY AND YOUR BABY
Dr. Wilson will examine your spinal column for misalignments (called vertebral subluxations) causing the spine and nerves stress. Vertebral subluxations damage the nervous system and affect the workings of the entire body. If subluxations are present, the Dr. Wilson will correct them with a chiropractic spinal adjustment in order to release the spinal stress. Without subluxations the body will function better, have higher resistance to disease and express more wholeness (health) than a body with uncorrected subluxations.
That is the essential message of chiropractic.
All this is extremely important for the pregnant woman who needs to have her body as healthy and strong as possible in order to handle the rigors of pregnancy and childbirth. Chiropractic care will help ensure that the reproductive and other systems so essential for a healthy pregnancy receive a nerve supply from the spinal column without interference. The slightest interference to the nerve supply could adversely affect the mother and the developing fetus.

DRUGLESS HEALTH CARE
Another excellent reason for seeing a chiropractor during pregnancy is that it is a drugless health care system. Drugs, whether prescription or over-the-counter, can harm the growing fetus. There is no such thing as a safe drug. The safest thing for a pregnant woman to do is avoid all drugs and seek natural non-drug alternatives for health care if at all possible. Almost all types of drugs and medications have been linked to fetal damage or malformations.
It is virtually impossible to specify any drug that will not result in an increased frequency of congenital malformations when administered in a certain does to sufficiently large panel of different laboratory animals. No drugs should be prescribed during pregnancy without weighing the maternal needs against the risk of fetal damage.

PREGNANT WOMEN HAVE SPECIAL CONCERNS
There are so many things pregnant women worry about: staying pregnant, carrying the baby to full term, morning sickness, the baby developing normally, backaches, leg pain and if their labor will be safe and (hopefully) easy.
Can chiropractic care help ease their minds? Chiropractic care has been observed to help pregnant and birthing women a number of ways. Chiropractors have been performing spinal adjustments on pregnant women for over a hundred years and have noted that chiropractic spinal corrective care may help maintain pregnancy, control vomiting during pregnancy, deliver full-term infants with ease and produce healthier infants.
The Journal of American Osteopathic Association , a number of practitioners commented on the effectiveness of spinal care for pregnant women.

SPINAL ADJUSTMENTS
“Wellness care is administering to optimize the biomechanical and nervous system function, therefore allowing the highest level of neurophysiological integration.”
Chiropractic care is especially needed during pregnancy because of the many physical and chemical changes the woman’s body is going though. Not only is her center of gravity changing because of the added physical weight she is carrying, but her spinal structure becomes more flexible due to hormonal changes which relax the ligaments in the pelvis, preparing them for stretching during childbirth. In an already unstable spine, that could aggravate spinal problems.
By Ted Koren, D.C.

Webster Breech Technique - by International Chiropractic Pediatric Association
One of the latest developments in chiropractic prenatal care has been a method of correcting breech presentations in which the baby isn’t positioned properly for birth.
Developed by the late Larry Webster, D.C. , of the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association, chiropractors are able to release stress on the pregnant women’s pelvis and causes relaxation to the uterus so the baby will turn naturally. Called the Webster Breech Technique. Dr. Webster stated that it is “up to 94% successful in turning babies in utero so the can be delivered easily.” The best thing about this technique is that it is natural, non-evassive and not stressful to the baby. To find out more about this technique - please call one of the Family Chiropractic offices. ◊ ICPA Newsletter, March-April 2000

The Webster Technique - A Testimonial
I don’t know if you’re keeping count or want to hear the success stories, but I am amazed at the Webster procedure! Our daughter had turned from cephalic (head down) to a frank breech in her 36th week. My wife had a doctor attempt a version without success. She tried lying down with her buttock higher than her head to try and turn the baby by gravity, to much discomfort and no result. Finally, she saw a chiropractor for the Webster Technique.
The chiropractor was naturally curious how we came to find out about this procedure and how we picked him. Research on the internet and from the Yellow Pages, luck of the draw really. Our chiropractor had been trained by Doctor Webster himself and had performed the Webster Breech Technique. He had performed this technique several times with a 100% success rate, requiring 2 or 3 visits.
A minor sacral adjustment was followed by a painless pressure point somewhere between the lower tummy and hip for two minutes. At first, my wife’s uterus contracted, then went into spasm, then finally relaxed. The doctor and my wife both laughed as the watched our daughter go nuts inside the womb. This series of acrobatics continued as my wife scheduled her next appointment and got into her car. Since my wife is an ultrasound tech, she decided to go to the hospital where she scanned herself. By the time she hot there, Sara was cephalic again! It was our chiropractor’s first single-session client! Spread the word! The majority of caesarian sections due to breech positioning can be avoided!
Gabriel Prefontaine ◊

INFANTS AND BABIES
You do everything to ensure your baby’s health: during pregnancy you eat right, you avoid drugs, cigarettes and alcohol (even aspirin has been shown to cause problems in pregnancy); and you take childbirth classes. After the baby is born, you breastfeed knowing that it is the superior form of nutrition; you do everything you can to make sure your baby is healthy - have you had their spine checked? A chiropractic spinal checkup can ensure a healthier baby, one with higher resistance to disease and a healthier nervous system.

BIRTH TRAUMA - First Subluxation
Sadly, some newborns have unhealthy spines. According to Development Medical Childhood Neurology “The birth process is a potentially traumatic, crippling event...mechanical stress imposed by obstetrical manipulation - even the application of standard orthodox procedures may prove intolerable to the fetus. The view has been expressed clinically that most signs of neonatal injury observed in the delivery room are neurological.”
“With the birth process becoming more of an intervening procedure, the chiropractic adjustment becomes even more important to the child’s future,” says the late Larry Webster, D.C., of the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association.

THE SPINE AND INFANT HEALTH
Of a random group of 1250 babies examined 5 days after birth, 211 suffered from vomiting, hyperactivity and sleeplessness - spinal abnormalities were found in 95% of this group. Spinal adjustments :frequently resulted in immediate quieting, cessations of crying, muscular relaxation and sleepiness. “ The authors noted that an unhealthy spine causes “many clinical features from central motor impairment to lower resistance to infections - especially ear, nose and throat infections.”
In one case history, and 18-month-old boy suffered from tonsillitis, frequent enteritis, therapy-resistant conjunctivitis, frequent colds and earache and increasing sleeping problems. After the first spinal adjustment, the child demanded to be put to bed and slept peacefully until morning. His health returned to normal.
One wonders, what would have happened to this child if he never had spinal care? A life of medicines? Of continued sickness? Two medical doctors who authored the above mentioned study concluded that a chiropractic spinal checkup “...should be obligatory after every difficult birth” and any spinal stress “should be….adjusted...the success of adjustment overshadows every other type of care.”
In another study, of 1093 newborns checked, 298 had upper neck stress and early signs of scoliosis.
For over a hundred years, doctors of chiropractic have observed often dramatic responses from some infants after a chiropractic spinal adjustments with conditions as varied as Erb’s Palsy, in which an arm is limp and undeveloped, torticollis (twisted neck), “nervousness,” and ear, nose and throat infections.

SHAKEN BABY SYNDROME
Babies are very top heavy. Mild to moderate shaking of a child can result in serious neurological damage since their neck muscles are undeveloped. This damage has been known to occur after playfully throwing the child up in the air and catching them. The damage caused is called Shaken Baby Syndrome. Not only being shaken or thrown but being spanked can also cause spinal or neurological damage to a child. Any child who has been subjected to this rough behavior desperately needs a chiropractic checkup.

WHEN DOES A BABY NEED A SPINAL CHECKUP?
According to chiropractic pediatric specialist, Larry Webster, D.C., there are six times in a baby’s first year of life with spinal examinations are especially important:
After the birth process.
When the baby starts to hold his/her head up.
When the baby sits up.
When the baby starts to crawl.
When the baby starts to stand.
When the baby starts to walk.

Chiropractic for Children
Parents will go to great lengths to protect their child's health. They are adamant about proper nutrition, exercise, and regular dental and eye examinations. Yet many aren't aware of the most important part of the child's health care program—regular spinal checkups.
Children, by their nature, are active and energetic, and rarely present themselves with symptoms of subluxations. It can be especially difficult for parents to realize subluxations are adversely affecting their children—particularly if no outside symptoms exist.
Once symptoms are manifested, it often means a health care issue that has been causing damage to the child for weeks or months.
To provide our children with optimal health, it's essential to make chiropractic checkups part of a child's regular health care routine.
Dr. Wilson has a passion for children's health and offers free well-baby spinal examinations. Dr. Wilson has also taken extensive training in pediatric adjusting with the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association.

CONCLUSION
“Our children deserve to be treated naturally, not with dangerous chemical drugs and unproven surgeries,” says Dr. Bobby Doscher, director of Oklahaven Children’s Center, which is beginning its fourth decade helping indigent children with physical, neurological and emotional disabilities through drug-free chiropractic care.
Do all you can to give your baby the best possible chance to have a healthy life. That includes childbirth without violence, avoidance of drugs and medical procedures (except in emergencies) and breastfeeding. You have your baby’s eyes checked, heart checked, ears checked - why not their spine.
No matter what disease or condition you have, you can benefit from a healthy spine. Spinal health can be as important for your overall healing as proper nutrition. Are you and your family carrying the vertebral subluxation complex in your spines? Only a chiropractic spinal check-up can tell.
Among the many things contributing to your health: the quality of the air, food and water you take in; how you handle emotional stress; your inherited weaknesses and strengths; your use of drugs; exercise; and relaxation - a healthy spine is absolutely essential. In some people it is a major factor and can make the difference between a life of health, strength and vitality or a life of disease, weakness and disability. □ Ted Koren, DC
Koren Publications - for all reference please call our office.