Chiropractic can help you poop?
Yes, you read that correctly and no, this isn’t click bait. Unless including the word poop in your title qualifies as click bait. So, if chiropractic can really help you defecate how does that work and how often can it help?
Typically, when I am having this conversation, it is about newborns having irregular, inconsistent, hard and painful bowel movements and the parents have tried everything from various fruit juices, reverting to soft food, massage, exercise and warm baths yet nothing has helped. They have usually also been to the pediatrician who gave them laxatives, but to no avail. At this point parents are worried and looking for anything that could help. Eventually they come across an article on the internet (not so unlike the one you are reading now) and wonder if Chiropractic can really help. The good news is that I have witnessed and helped many babies overcome chronic constipation through specific chiropractic care. So how does it work? Is it safe? Do you adjust a baby the same way you would adjust an adult?
Safely Adjusting Babies Pt. 1
When it comes to adjusting little ones, safety should always come first. The first thing a parent should ask is if the doctor has been pediatric trained. For multiple reasons this is important; Babies aren’t the same as full grown adults. That may seem like an obvious statement, but when it comes to caring for kids it is important to understand how they differ and what care looks like due to these differences. Structurally, their joints and bones haven’t fully developed, so babies have much more cartilage throughout their body than us adults. Cartilage differs from bone in that it is much more pliable. A perfect example of this is the difference between your nose or ears and the bones in your fingers. Your nose and ears are mushier and more pliable. You can bend your ears and nose, heck you can even fold your ears in half. However, folding your finger bones (Phalanges) in half wouldn’t be in your best interest.
Spinal curvature is also important to note. We aren’t born with the forward (Lordotic) curve you see in adults. Babies don’t start to acquire these curves until they start becoming mobile. When kids start to learn how to lift their head, crawl and eventually walk, these curves begin developing. Until that moment, kids have a C shape curve to their spine, which is to be accounted for to ensure the smoothest adjustment. In Chiropractic we call accounting for spinal curvature the line of drive of an adjustment. The easiest way to describe this in words is to think of moving a box through a doorway. When doing so it is easiest to walk straight through the door as opposed to turning sideways and trying to squeeze through. When you turn sideways and try to go through the door you will probably bang the box into the door frame. When we account for spinal curves of the joint plane line, adjustments are smooth, easy, and require very little force.
If you’d like more info about pediatric chiropractic, check out this research article from the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association.
Back to the Poop
How in the world does Chiropractic care help constipated kid’s poop? The answer is found in the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system located in the sacral area of the body. Basically, those big words mean that when the nerves around the sacral region become irritated by the sacrum being locked in a suboptimal position, constipation can begin.
Let’s break that down. The parasympathetic nervous system is a branch of your nervous system that tells your body it’s time to rest, digest or defecate. On the flip side of the parasympathetic nervous system, we have the sympathetic nervous system. Our sympathetic nervous system is otherwise known as the fight or flight part of your nervous system, and it does exactly what it sounds like it would do. These two areas of your nervous system are housed near different areas of the spine. Your sympathetic ganglion(Nerve cell cluster) lives near the thoracic region of your spine. This allows proximity to your heart, lungs and adrenaline producing glands. Which as you can probably guess is a good thing when it comes to fight or flight situations. Your parasympathetic nervous system is housed in two different areas of body. Area one is up around your cervical spine and area two is down around your sacrum (Bottom bone of the spine). It is that bottom bone, the sacrum, and its relationship with the parasympathetic nerves that end up playing a key role in chronic constipation cases with kids. When the Sacrum locks into anteriorly (Forward) or more commonly posteriorly (Backwards) it can irritate the nerves in the area including the parasympathetic nervous system. This irritation can cause the connection between the sacral plexus (Parasympathetic nervous systems home) and the distal color to become less than optimal. Without optimal communication between the two, chronic constipation and painful bowel movements start to rear their ugly head. Remember when I said the parasympathetic nervous system plays a role in digestion and defecation? Without proper communication between your Sacral plexus (parasympathetic nervous system) and intestines/colon your food or feces depending on which stage it is at won’t move properly through your intestines. This leads to constipation and pain when forcing a bowel movement. Chiropractic care can remove that nerve interference and allow for proper communication once more.
Safely Adjusting Babies Pt. 2
So that is neat and all, but what does a typical adjustment on a little one look like? If you are picturing the last YouTube video you saw of someone getting yanked across a table, don’t worry it is the farthest thing from that. The assessment and adjustment look very different from a full-grown adult, which makes sense with what we covered earlier about the joints being mostly cartilage and the difference in spinal curvature. The assessment can vary depending on what is going on, so for simplicity I will just cover the assessment of the Sacrum on little ones. I start every first visit playing 20 questions with the parent; Just like you would with your pediatrician. I’ll ask, “when did symptoms start, what has helped, what hasn’t?” and other things of that nature. Next, I roll into the physical assessment, which involves checking every segment of the spine and looking for other signs that typically show when the Sacrum is the culprit of the little one’s constipation. Lastly, I check the little one’s inflammation levels through the spine. I do this via an instrument called the Delta T. For all intents and purposes, it is an expensive thermometer. It has two probes that I run down the kiddos back over the joints of the spine. If any of the joints are harboring any inflammation it will show up on the Delta T. When all these criteria are met and I am positive little one needs adjusted, I will move onto getting them treated.
The actual treatment is often the part parents are most skeptical of and end up being surprised at how easy and gentle it is. Adjusting a kiddo isn’t done the same as on an adult. I know I said that earlier, but it bears repeating. When adjusting a baby, I do all my adjustments with the tips of my fingers or thumbs when it comes to the sacrum. This is done due to the small size of babies’ vertebrae. If you have a second, look up how small a baby’s vertebra are. You will be astonished at how little they are, so for specificity purposes fingertips are the only thing that will truly work. As for the force required to make an adjustment, it is as much pressure as you would place on your eye. This leads to many parents missing the adjustment all together. Now the last question parents may have is, “Will my baby “pop” when they get adjusted?” It is possible, but that is completely dependent on how gassy your little one is or more specifically how gassy their joints are. So, it is possible that they will cavitate (“pop”), but not guaranteed. Just like you can have rain without thunder you can also have an adjustment without a cavitation.
If you have any questions or are curious if Chiropractic care could help your little one feel free to schedule a complimentary consultation where we will answer all questions you may have.
