You may not think of taking your baby to the chiropractor but studies show chiropractic care for infants has many benefits.
Think being pulled or pushed from the comfort, safety and darkness of the womb into the bright and noisy world. From there, people pass you around and it’s generally chaotic. Can you imagine the sensory overload?
An increasing number of new mothers take their infants to the chiropractor for adjustments and to ease the transition. A study shared in the Journal of Manual Medicine examined 1000 newborns and found 119 of them had imbalances in the spine and nerves that could be corrected by gentle chiropractic care.
Left untreated, these imbalances could contribute to colic, tonsillitis, allergies, asthma, ADD/ADHD and even seizures.
Wouldn’t you prevent these if you could?
The process is simple. Your chiropractor will examine your baby and look for discrepancies in leg length. Then, he or she will adjust your baby’s head so it’s in alignment with the spine and eliminates any stress caused by pressure on nerves.
As a result your baby will feel better.
Chiropractor care can benefit every child and if your baby is especially fussy, it might mean he or she is uncomfortable and a simple adjustment would eliminate the pain.
If you’re in Doylestown, Pa. Dr. Jeff McQuaite can offer you a free consultation to see if chiropractic care for infants is right for your baby.
Every pregnant mother notices physical and emotional changes during pregnancy. One of those changes is in your posture. It’s not a surprise that you find yourself sitting or standing differently to accommodate your growing belly. However, you may be surprised by the accompanying aches and pains.
Fortunately, chiropractic care during pregnancy can make a world of difference in the way you feel. Because the whole point of chiropractic care is to accommodate your body and realign your spine, it’s especially helpful for pregnant women.
For example, you know how you start standing differently when you’re pregnant? You probably support your lower back with your hands. That new posture affects your whole body and can lead to a slightly raised hip or tension in your shoulder. Pregnancy causes your pelvis to tilt too which causes other alignment issues in your body.
All of these changes can wreak havoc on your spinal column, create pressure on nerve endings (painful!), and block your body’s communication system.
Why Does Chiropractic Care During Pregnancy Make Such a Difference?
You probably know your nervous system is a collection of nerves and cells. The cells carry messages from one part of your body to another. Imagine a highway with smooth flowing traffic vs. a traffic jam. That’s what your body is like. When everything is going well, then your cells carry messages back and forth. But when the communication channels are blocked, then you can feel pain and inflammation.
As your body stretches and adjusts to accommodate your new baby, it likely is thrown out of alignment. This partial dislocation– called subluxation in the chiropractor world—is the reason why you’re having lower back pain. The misalignment can cause inflammation throughout your body.
Plus, this dislocation blocks communication coming and going from your central nervous system. This is a problem because your brain tells every part of your body what to do. If there’s a blockage, your reflexes may be slower, you’re more forgetful and you may not be able to plan as well.
In other words, your brain slows down.
That’s the “pregnancy brain” at work. Now, a pregnancy chiropractor may not be able to restore your normal brain functioning entirely, but it may help.
A prenatal chiropractor adjustment “puts everything back” the way it needs to be. Imagine your spine, neck, and pelvis in their proper alignment. You don’t have any pinched nerves and your brain and body are communicating well. This keeps your “control center” in good working order and reduces inflammation and stress. You may find your pregnancy back pain disappears.
Plus, chiropractic care during pregnancy can reduce symptoms of morning sickness, headaches, and other common elements of pregnancy.
Chiropractic care is all-natural so you don’t have to worry about drugs interfering with the growth of your child. While you always want to check with your doctor before seeing a prenatal chiropractor, for most pregnant women, it’s very safe. Your doctor may also be able to recommend some stretches to relieve pain too.
Prenatal Chiropractor Might Benefit Your Baby
Chances are, you’re taking prenatal vitamins, and reading up on various techniques to help you have a safe pregnancy.
You might be doing a little prenatal yoga or adapting other exercises to your changing body. A pregnancy chiropractor can add to your health regimen by keeping your body properly aligned. Most of all, regular adjustments can help your pelvis remain in the right position for giving birth.
When your pelvis is in the right position, your baby has room to grow and move into the birth canal in the best way possible. It can even help your labor to go smoothly and speedier.
If you’re pregnant, your body is going through many changes, help it adapt by considering chiropractic care during pregnancy. If you’re in Doylestown, PA, contact us for a consultation. Let us help you make your pregnancy more comfortable.
Slipped discs, spinal stenosis and degenerative discs are three examples of back related pain that you might feel in your legs. Each falls under the category of “sciatica” due to the connection with the longest nerve in your body – the sciatic nerve.
A new study shows a combination of chiropractic care and home exercises can help you find relief for your back related leg pain.
Whether your leg pain tingles, burns or flares up when you move, you want to find relief. Here are three common back troubles that chiropractic care may help.
Slipped or Herniated Discs
There are 23 discs that run the length of your spinal column. When one is damaged and no longer in alignment, it puts pressure on the nerve that lies beneath it. That pressure hurts and leads to pain traveling down your sciatic nerve and into your leg.
You can try some simple forward and backward bends like these to help you find relief as well as chiropractic treatments to realign your spine. Here’s how chiropractic treatments help.
Spinal stenosis
Imagine your spine with the knobby bits at the base of the spinal column. Those are called “facet joints” and as you age, they can enlarge. When they get bigger, they squeeze the nearby nerves and that hurts both in your lower back and in your legs.
Sometimes, you’ll feel relief when you sit in a chair and lean forward. That posture takes some of the pressure off those nerves. Swimming and walking can both help relieve the pain. This is also called radiculopathy.
Degenerative discs
Aging does terrible things to our bodies, one of them is drying up our spinal discs (which before moved about with no trouble in their body of water.) They also become less flexible. The combination leads to degeneration and pain when you move.
Stabilizing exercises like yoga’s “bridge” pose can help. To practice it, lie on the floor on your back. Bend your knees so your feet are flat on the floor and your fingertips could touch your heels if you reached down. Then, raise your behind and lower back off the floor as high as you can, you’ll be balancing on your feet and upper back. Hold the posture for 3-8 seconds and slowly lower back down.
In conjunction with chiropractic care, many exercises can help you find relief from back related leg pain. Are you in the Doylestown area? Give us a call or stop by our office, we’d love to help you.
Conservative Care First:
A Sensible, Effective Approach to Back and Neck Pain
Dr. McQuaite of McQuaite Chiropractic to Participate in National Public Health Awareness Campaign
During National Chiropractic Health Month (NCHM) this fall, Dr. McQuaite of Doylestown and doctors of chiropractic (DCs) nationwide will educate patients about the value of a “conservative care first” approach to health care, which encourages exhausting non-invasive, non-pharmaceutical treatments for pain management and health enhancement before moving on to other options.
During NCHM in October, Dr. McQuaite will share information about the chiropractic profession’s “conservative care first” approach and why it is especially significant to today’s health care consumers. This in turn with help patients have well-informed conversations with their health care providers, empowering them to become their own advocates by insisting on information about conservative treatment options.
Why is “conservative care first” more important today than ever in facing our nation’s healthcare challenges?
Numerous recent studies have clearly shown the dangerous overreliance in the U.S. on prescription painkillers that simply mask pain, but do not cure. This has tremendously increased Americans risk for overuse, and abuse, of these drugs if taken for long periods, leading to over 17,000 related deaths in 2010 (more than heroin and cocaine combined). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls the abuse of prescription pain medications an “epidemic.”
Recent reports question the overuse–and in some cases effectiveness–of more invasive treatments such as spinal fusion surgery and spinal steroid injections for back pain. It makes sense for patients to exhaust more conservative options before undergoing these costly procedures.
DCs are the highest-rated healthcare practitioner for low-back pain treatments with their patient-centered, whole person approach that provides greater interaction and listening for appropriate diagnosis and developing more cost-effective treatment planning.
“During National Chiropractic Health Month we’re reminding patients to ask about conservative treatment options when weighing their health care choices,” says Dr. McQuaite “Chiropractic treatment is a much more safe and cost-effective option for back and neck pain that may reduce the need for unnecessary drugs and surgery.”
For more tips on healthy, pain-free living, visit www.mcquaitechiropractic.com.
National Chiropractic Health Month is a nationwide observance held each October. The event helps raise public awareness of the benefits of chiropractic care and its natural, whole-person, patient-centered approach to health and wellness.
Dr. Jeff McQuaite, a second generation chiropractor, has been helping the residents of Doylestown, Jamison, Warrington, Chalfont and the entire Central Bucks area rediscover a life without pain for over 15 years. He and his family have lived in Doylestown for over 20 years, with both of his sons attending Central Bucks Schools: Doyle Elementary, Lenape Middle School and CB West High School.
According to Jahangiri JN, Vatankhah N, and Baradaran HR, medical researchers at the Research Institute for Endocrine Sciences, found that a combination of spinal manipulation (chiropractic care) and gentle massage cut migraine pain of the study participants from a level of 5 on the 1-10 pain scale to a .5.
And it happened in just one session!
That sounds pretty good don’t you think?
A separate study adds more credibility. This 2000 study found chronic migraine sufferers who participated in two months of chiropractic treatment lessened their migraines by 90%!
As you may know, sleeping problems, tension and even certain foods are some of the leading causes of migraine headaches.
Yet, it’s a simple practice of readjusting the spine and neck that relieves some of that tension—no matter the cause. A massage will help even more because it relaxes your upper back muscles where so much of that tension lays.
Painkillers Can Increase Your Number of Migraines
Did you know that using prescription painkillers for migraines may actually increase the frequency of your headaches?
They’re called “rebound headaches” and are brought on by overusing painkillers.
It works like this: You feel a headache coming on so you take a painkiller. After a while, you feel the pain return so you take another. It turns into a cycle and the drugs lose their effectiveness and can become dangerous. This is true even for simple over the counter remedies like ibuprofen.
Instead, of falling into this trap from which there is no relief, you can schedule an appointment with your chiropractor and massage therapist.
If you’re in the Central Bucks County area, Dr. Jeff McQuaite is conveniently located right in Doylestown. He also has a massage therapist on staff. You can combine both therapies with one visit. Chances are, you’ll feel relief from your migraine pain!
