Chiropractic Care for Children

It’s never too early for your baby to receive chiropractic care! At Baseline, we believe the sooner the better, so that families can be fully supported through their journey with a new little one. Many parents enjoy bringing their baby in for care in those early days or weeks following birth to ensure their tiny body is aligned, and feeling its best. Remember that when the spine is supported and aligned, so is the nervous system, and the nervous system controls everything in the body including sleep, digestion, and movement!

We typically see improvements very fast when it comes to babies and children. Babies don’t have years of wear and tear, muscle tightness, and poor posture habits like you and I. Babies are new to this world, so often subtle and small adjustments go a long way. Of course if there are more serious concerns regarding alignment, it may require more visits. In this case, a course of treatment will be discussed or even collaborated with other health specialists. Overall babies typically respond very fast to pediatric chiropractic care. Every session is based on the babies individual needs, and treatment is custom to their developmental journey.

An initial visit, which includes: history taking, performing an examination, and treatment is one hour in length. The initial visit will include a full explanation of what we find in our exam, treatment that includes light muscle work and small adjustments to the spine, and a review of home stretches, or exercises depending on the needs of your little one. Homework might include how to help your baby stretch, or to assist with various milestones like assisting them while rolling over, or helping them stand. Subsequent visits are half an hour long and include muscle work, adjustments if needed and a review of home care exercises and possible new ones to keep your progress going. By putting emphasis on longer appointment times, we believe this is the best way to have high quality patient centered, thorough pediatric chiropractic care.

Our goal is to have your little one feeling the very best leaving our clinic following treatment. After leaving the appointment, and as the nervous system and body resets, it’s common for your little one to want more snuggles, more frequent feeds, and perhaps have more bowel movements. A follow up visit will be discussed, then treatment as needed on the individual needs of where your little one is at in their developmental milestones.

We hear a lot about milestones when it comes to baby growth and development. Milestones are the skills that your baby learns as they grow; and include rolling over, sitting, crawling, and standing, to name a few. Some milestones may be delayed or skipped if a child is uncomfortable or in pain performing that activity. We must remember that babies will not do any activity that causes them pain, and will find a way around them. This will lead to delayed or missed milestones. An example of this would be crawling but instead of both knees on the floor, one foot may be planted to propel themselves forward. You may think this method is strange or even funny, but this could be an indication that the pelvis or hip is tight/stuck which could be assessed and treated with gentle chiropractic care to resolve the issue. Common advice for delayed or missed milestones is that eventually the baby will “catch up” to his or her peers. Rather than waiting to see if issues will resolve on their own, seek out treatment from a pediatric chiropractor who is trained to assess and treat common issues like this. We want families to feel supported and encouraged as they navigate this new journey with their little one.