Why babies (& mommies) need Chiropractic care

Since becoming a Mom, I’m very precious as to what I do with free time, seen that there isn’t much of it available, and if Granny and Grandpa are available to babysit then I make sure to spend that time wisely! Eg: sleeping = time spent wisely.

This past Saturday morning I attended a free wellness / chiropractic talk, which really isn’t something I’d usually do, however it was organised by my friend Lucy and I thought I’d go along to show my support (she has a really hectic story which I will share towards the end of this post).

Well I was blown away. I honestly learnt more in that 1 hour talk than I have anywhere else in a long time and it was so refreshing to meet professionals from the medical industry who are not just pushing pharmaceutical drugs left, right and centre and who actually care about the overall wellbeing of their clients.

What I learnt:

This first fact blew my mind – the United States of America makes up only 6% of the whole worlds population, however they use up 80% of the worlds pharmaceutical drugs! Just take a moment to let that one sink in…

Health is not merely about the lack of disease, it’s about 100% body function – physical and emotional. I love that they mention the emotional side as it really plays an important part in our health. I realised this after having my son and going through a few months of feeling really guilty about the way certain things turned out for us, eg: birth experience, struggling to breastfeed… I’m generally a really healthy person and I’ve gone 3 winters without a flu, but this winter I was pretty depressed and with that, came the flu, gastro, headaches, I got them all and I’m convinced that because of my emotional wellbeing, my health suffered.

The role of the central nervous system:

The human body can go 40 days with no food, a few days with no water, a few minutes with no air, but it can’t go a second without nerve supply. The functioning of your nervous system is central to everything though it’s most often overlooked as the source of our problems and I think this is especially important after pregnancy.

The effect of chiropractic treatment before, during and after pregnancy:

When I hear the word ‘chiropractor’ I hear clicking and cracking and screaming. I went to a chiropractor once years ago and it was a less than fun experience.

The second half of the talk was all about pregnancy and how chiropractic treatment can actually have a drastic effect on helping you to achieve the birth you want, helping to correct the way your baby lies inside you and reducing labour time. I was shocked to hear that South Africa has a 70% c-section rate and Cape Town itself has a 90% c-section rate in private hospitals! Now I know that there are some Mom’s who elect to have a c-section and I believe that choice should be available to us all, and there are certainly a great amount of very necessary emergency c-sections, but 90% seems like a very high statistic to me.

I learnt that 95% of infants have misalignments after birth, whether by natural delivery or c-section, if there are sublaxations present in the spine, it can even affect breastfeeding, as your baby could be uncomfortable feeding with their head one way over the other, meaning that they don’t drink as much from one breast than they do from the other, which can of course cause all sorts of problems. (I learnt this the hard way!)

The sooner you can get your newborn to a chiropractor after they are born, they better, especially if you are hoping to breastfeed. The chiropractic technique that they use on babies is not the same as the one they use on adults. It’s a very gentle process, a light fingertip type touching that might appear to not be doing much at all, but can have dramatic results – especially in colicky babies.

I can’t comment on the effectiveness of chiropractic treatment on babies as I never had the opportunity to take Leo, however what did work for us was craniosacral therapy (which I believe is similar). A friend recommended it to me, especially because we had a very long labour and poor little Leo was stuck for a very long time, so when he came out his head was kinda skew and he kept flopping more to one side than the other, and… he just wouldn’t stop crying.

I found that after just 1 session, he was already sleeping better. He was still crying a lot, but the more we went, the less he cried. I believe those treatments, combined with babywearing – is what led to him finally settling and becoming the happy baby that he is today. (The image at the top of this post is my little Leo being treated by Osteopath Dr Patrick McDonald at Milnerton Mediclinic.)

Lucy’s story:

My summary of Lucy’s story is going to be quick as I don’t know all the details and I don’t want to get anything wrong, but if you want to find out more I would highly recommend attending one of her upcoming free talks and I’ll ask Lucy to leave further details in the comment section below this post.

 Lucy had a very difficult pregnancy from 16 weeks of all day morning sickness to severe blood pressure which needed medication. London was delivered via c-section, formula fed and had received 5 sets of antibiotics by the age of 1.

At 18 months she couldn’t take the health issues anymore and she decided to try a Homeopath. He had London’s gut tested and they realised he had severe candida overgrowth which was the reason his immune system was not functioning correctly. He then sent her to a Neurological Paediatrician who diagnosed London as being on the autism spectrum and she was basically told that he would be non-verbal and she would have to get special care for him.

After trying all different kinds of treatments and therapies, she finally took a leap of faith and turned to Dr Patrick and Dr Balbina as her neice had recommended them as knowledgeable chiropractors that might be able to help. She had struggled for 2 years to rid London’s candida through a very strict diet, and she finally started to see some results. After only 3 months of chiropractic treatment, London was completely cured of his candida and he started speaking for the first time. He started to hold and drink his own bottle (he previously only drank from a straw bottle and after hearing the chiropratic story on how his neck was out of alignment you get to understand why chiropractic worked), and today he is 5 years old and a completely healthy and happy young chap, but most importantly – this year he was diagnosed as no longer on the autism spectrum!

The Chiropractic treatment seemed to have switched on a button of sorts which made the rest of the therapies and interventions start to work the way they were meant to and London was healed.

A big thank you to Lucy for sharing her amazing story with us! It’s wonderful to hear a story with a happy ending, especially one that involves natural, non-evasive therapies.

If you found this post helpful, please share it with anyone you know who may benefit from the information and don’t forget to check the comments section below for further info from Lucy on her free talks.