Recently, we have had patients in our office who come in with specific conditions that get results from upper cervical care. A lot of them have kids at home and they have asked, “Hey Dr. Shaw, can this help my child at home?”  I say, “Of course it can! Every single human being with a brainstem, which has every single one of us, can definitely get help with upper cervical care.” If there is pressure on that brainstem, we know that the body is not functioning, nor healing, exactly like it should.

How can we help kids? Let’s backtrack a little bit. The first anatomical structure to form after those two cells meet to create that beautiful baby you may have at home is the brainstem. We know that if pressure is on the brainstem, it can cause problems throughout the entire body. Problems that some of these kids may have are usually chronic in nature. Things like ear infections, allergies, colic, asthma, weakened immune systems – the child get sick all the time and never really recovers – ADHD, and learning disabilities. All these things are affecting our children, especially in today’s day and age, and we know that all of these things can directly be caused by pressure on the nerve system.

How does this happen? We know in any neuroanatomy book, well-documented research, that the brain works in a circuit. Every memory, emotion, thought, and cognitive function travels in a circuit in the brain. What happens is the brain has, let’s say, a thought, that relays down to the brainstem where it is relayed back to another part of the brain to be interpreted. This works all the time, constantly. However, a misalignment at the top of the neck putting pressure on the brainstem can interfere with those relay messages from the brain back to the brain itself. You can imagine how the messages of thought, or an emotion, can be distorted at the level of the brainstem, which we see can sometimes cause ADHD or learning disorders.

We also know that the immune system is 100% controlled by the nervous system, which is why pressure on the nervous system can negatively impact the immune system, so your child’s body cannot heal as it should.

What do we need to do? We need to get these kids checked for nerve system pressure. If you are worried that chiropractic care is too rough, please do not fear. Actually, it has been documented that the adjustment for a newborn or baby upwards of 18 months is similar to checking the ripeness of a tomato; that is how gentle we are with our adjustments. Kids from toddlers all the way up to teenagers, only require a very simple adjustment to take the pressure off the brainstem. You do not have to worry about any twisting, turning, cracking, or popping that may injure or scare the child.