Why do your kids need Chiropractic?
Everybody understands the importance of dental care to guarantee the dental health of one's teeth. Brushing, flossing and regular visits to the dentist are now practices that we don't need to think twice about. As a result more than 95% of people in the western world will keep their teeth throughout life. With all of this focus on dental care one would be excused for thinking that teeth were essential for sustaining life. They are actually not. Our spine however, is.
Our brain sends and receives messages to and from the 10 trillion cells of our body via the nervous system. Not one cell of our body functions independently of the brain's command. There needs to be a direct, unbroken line of communication between the brain and all of the organs, tissues and cells of the body all of the time. Our brain is so important for us to sustain life that is protected within an immovable boney skull (the cranium).
Obviously if our skull was mobile, the bone's forming its structure could move out of place from forces like those exerted by traumas, falls or even when lying in the wrong position, threatening the health of our brain. The nervous tissue of the spinal cord, nerve roots and nerves is as delicate as the tissues of the brain. Pressure exerted upon the brain in other words has the same potential to damage the spinal-cord and nerves, due to their delicate nature. The spinal-cord and the roots are in cased within our bony spine, just as our brain is in case within our skull. However, unlike the cozy protection offered by the skull for the brain, the vertebral column unfortunately doesn't offer the same degree of protection. This is due to the fact that the spine is mobile. Can you imagine what it would be like to have the delicate electrical circuitry required to coordinate the function of our car, to be in cased in the most trauma affected part of our car – the wheels? Of course this wouldn't make sense.
Our spine obviously needs to be mobile. We need to move, twist, and bend to be able to perform our daily activities. The problem is that when our spine isn't perfectly aligned it begins to dysfunction and doesn't manage to protect the nervous system as efficiently as it does when it is aligned.
Children are active beings. They run and fall, jump and slide. They sleep in all sorts of positions. In the first five years of their lives they fall more than 2000 times! Each impact can compromise the very delicate relationship between the spine and the nervous system. Kids sometimes cry after falling. Their parents inicial reaction is go worry, until they see their child stop crying and go back to playing. However, what most parents fail to recognise is that these common traumas can result in spinal dysfunction that may take years or even decades to manifest itself. It's like the wheel of a car after going over a hole. The wheel is left misaligned but it takes many, many more kilometres to wear the tyre out.
As mentioned previously, every single organ of the body receives its life from the brain via the nerves that exit the spine between each vertebra. Our health is therefore directly related to the state of our spine. Who would think of looking to the spine if a child had headaches, colic or wasn't sleeping well? Hippocrates would have as he declared 400 years BC,
"Look to the spine for the cause of disease."
Just as children's teeth need to be cared for from the time they appear, so too do their spines. The problem is that most parents simply don't know how to do that. Our spines are not visible looking from the outside as our teeth are. We can't see the mild deviations, the scoliosis or the dysfunction that may be reducing the life force between the brain and let's say, the child's intestines or stomach. Our body doesn't always advise us via pain and symptoms when something is wrong. How teeth don't either, as cavities can lie dormant for a long time before actually being detected.
Chiropractors specialise in the detection and removal of these functional anomalies that interfere with nervous communication and ultimately our child's health. A chiropractic examination is easy, fast and pain-free. Many kids will jostle with their siblings for the right to jump up onto the chiropractic table first. Chiropractic is about caring for the health of the spine while we possess that health and not waiting to treat the disease of the spine after we lose its health. Sounds a bit like our teeth once again, wouldn't you say? Chiropractic kids are happy, healthy fulfilled kids whose bodies allow them to express true health. If you have never had your children examined by a chiropractor why don't you give it ago? I discovered my spinal problems when I was seven years of age but only treated them when I was 19. I thought that low back pain was normal after playing sport. As I had suffered from an early age I just thought that it was normal and never told my mother or father. I wonder now how many back problems were related to the headaches, asthma and intestinal problems that I suffered so much as a kid. Funny that, as an adult I never again suffered these problems after getting regular chiropractic treatment. It changed my life and by dedicating my life to chiropractic, it has enabled me to change the lives of hundreds of thousands of others. Many people are surprised to hear that the children need chiropractic. When they understand that chiropractic focuses on maintaining the health we have and not treating something that we have acquired, it is easy to understand why parents will want to make sure that their children spine's are functioning optimally throughout their lives.
Jason Gilbert is an Australian chiropractor and health and well-being educator. He is an official chiropractor with the World Surfing League, is an author and was the presenter of the program emotional health on Fox life Brazil.
To find out more of what he does feel free to find him on Facebook or Instagram @jasongilbert_