chiropractic care and kids

There is a saying in the chiropractic world that "It is easier to raise healthy kids, than it is to fix broken adults."  And these words have never been more true.  When we look at the environment that our kids are being brought up in today, its easy to visualize many different stressors to our spines and nervous systems than we had years ago.  We live in a technology based world right now.  Its inevitable.  Whether its sitting on a lap top in school, using tablets for learning, or cell phones and tablets for entertainment, our kids are in poor posture positions for the majority of their days.  Many recent studies have been done that show the simple act of looking downward at smart devices, increases the risk of losing the cervical curvature of the neck significantly.  They even coined this new dilemma as "text neck".  Simply looking down at a 45 degree angle for an extended period of time, causes around 50-60 pounds of force to impact the cervical musculature and spinal structures!  Think about that for a second!  If I were to ask you to hold an object from your head that weights 50-60 pounds, not very many of you would want to, or be able to do that.  But we are asking this of our bodies every day when we are surrounded with technology and poor body mechanics.

So this leads me to our next step...what can we do to help with this current problem?  One of the things that I tell all my patients, regardless of age, is to improve your postural positions while working on computers or even simply using your phones.  Bring the object as close to a neutral position as possible.  That could mean holding your phone more upright and in front of your face, or even elevating your computer at work to help with the ergonomics of your working environment.  One of my favorite sayings to my patients to "bring your phone to your face, and not your face to your phone."  This will potentially help alleviate the stresses that are carried on in the cervical structures.  When it comes to our younger kids this is a great place to start and teach them better methods to deal with the abundance of technology that they are surrounded with every day.  Of course through chiropractic care and getting adjusted we can help move those structures back to their normal positions, but we also need some help from them to relieve some of that stress.  

That is just one issue that kids are dealing with on a daily basis.  We can also look at the more common issues, such as ear infections, asthma, digestive issues, allergies, sinus pressure, sleeping problems, and colic.  All of these things present as stresses to the nervous system, so our main goal as chiropractors is to relieve that stress by trying to remove the interference to the nervous system by getting adjusted and moving the vertebra to its normal position.  When the vertebra move out of position, we call that a subluxation.  Subluxations create pressure and stress not only on the nerves that are related to that segment of the spine, but also to the soft tissue like muscles, ligaments and tendons that surround that joint space.  So we try to remove that by moving it back to its normal position.  As always, if anything in this article caught your attention, please give us a call to see if we think we can help you or your kids to help live a healthier lifestyle!!!!