The very best study of the effectiveness of chiropractic on the health and wellbeing is by observing the children of chiropractors. This is a large community and several generations old. They are a unique group because not only have most of the children been regularly checked for vertebral subluxation and adjusted since infancy but the family nutrition has likely been more wholesome with less junk and food chemical and sugar exposure. There is not a day that goes by where I don’t hear a joyful and thankful parent voice telling me how chiropractic has completely changed the health pattern of their child. Infantile conditions such as reflux, colic, constipation, fever, skin rashes and ear aches so commonly resolve under chiropractic care that I am amazed at how few children get the benefit of chiropractic.
When one considers that a service industry such as chiropractic is competing with a retail industry, namely the pharmaceutical/medical coalition there is little to wonder about. Yesterday I wrote about how this coalition has done such an excellent job in creating uncertainty, fear and down right manipulation of young parents that leads them down a primrose path to more and more medical interventions. To take advantage of what chiropractic has to offer a child requires that the parents are self assured and confident young adults who have the insight to step out of the medical box because they get the danger of medical interventions such as drugs and surgeries. They are more confident using foods, and herbals for symptoms, adjustment for nerve system interference, nourishing and balancing the nervous and immune system for natural immunity instead of subjecting babies to unstudied and often dangerous vaccinations.
A common cry amongst pediatricians is that chiropractors are not properly trained for the rigors of being a pediatrician but that is unfounded. Consider that babies have been adjusted by their chiropractic parents since 1895 and now there are two certifying bodies for pediatric chiropractors. Pediatricians also tell their patients that chiropractic adjustments will harm the baby and possibly cause a stroke, which is completely unfounded with no empirical evidence to show that chiropractors injure babies with standard pediatric chiropractic procedures. Sometimes I wonder if they think that we are roughly grabbing a child’s head and severely cranking their neck until tissue is tearing and the head is being ripped off. I know that is a gross depiction, perhaps I should have used a comic to illustrate this obscure attitude of pediatricians towards chiropractors. I think that the real problem is that they are afraid of the competition. The fact is that most babies would be so much healthier under chiropractic care with parents who are encouraged by a chiropractor to live a wholesome, vital life and to treat their babies with breast feeding, wholesome dieting with organic foods, proper use of supplements and herbals, regular chiropractic care, regular exercise and family fun, minimized electromagnetic exposure by minimizing media use of cell phones, TV and computers. Being a giving part of our community and promoting rational thinking with excellent educational opportunities instead of the typical dumbing down of our children.
This is what we have been promoting amongst our patients and it is what many chiropractors promote in their practice. This is also how we raised our children and now grandchildren. It is a much more wholesome model of child healthcare than what is currently being offered by mainstream medicine, but it takes parents who really want to be, not just good parents, but great parents.