Archive for pediatric chiropractic
Chiropractor Ventura believes strongly in pediatric chiropractic and offers this important information: From time to time, it can seem tiring attempting to keep up with a five-year-old. If you have an active child of this age, or if you’ve ever been around one for any length of time, you may have found yourself hoping that the kid would just stop moving for a moment. However, recent research is validating the long-term health benefits of this whirlwind of activity. In fact, according to a new University of Iowa study, rather than trying to slow these little ones down, five-year-olds should be encouraged to be as active as possible. Why? “Because it pays off as they grow older,” said Kathleen Janz, lead author of the study and professor of health and sport studies in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Being active at age five helps kids to avoid excess fat as they get older even if they don’t continue to be as active later in childhood. “We call this effect ‘banking’ because the kids benefit later on, similar to having a savings account at a bank. The protective effect is independent of what happens in between,” Janz went on to say.
Using a special scanner that accurately measures bone, fat, and muscle tissue, and an accelerometer that measures movment every minute, the UI team tested the body fat and activity level of 333 kis at ages five, eight, and eleven. The kids wore accelerometers to record their activity level for up to five days, affording much more reliable data than relying on kids or parents to track minutes of exercise.
The study, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, indicates that kids who are active at age five end up with less fat at age eight and eleven, even when controlling for their accumulated level of activity. The average five-year-old in the study got thirty minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise per day. For every ten minutes on top of that, kids had one-third of a pound less fat tissue at ages eight and eleven.
Although further investigation is necessary to discover what happens to the bodies of the active kids that keeps them in better shape down the road, Janz said that it could be that the active 5-year-olds didn’t develop as many fat cells, improved their insulin response, or that something happened metabolically that offered some protection even as they became less active.
However, as exciting as this study is, weight moderation is not the only benefit of early exercise. As a chiropractor I have noticed over the years that active kids don’t have as many common childhood health challenges, such as catching colds and the flu. Chiropractic treatment is, of course, particularly beneficial in helping kids to stay healthier. But, in addition, the stimulation to the brain that occurs during activities, especially those that require “cross pattern” motor movements of the larger muscles, i.e., right hand/left leg and left hand/right leg, such as crawling, running, climbing, and skipping, also boosts the autoimmune system and keeps kids healthier.
Many children nowadays are overweight and unhealthy. Though part of the problem is an unhealthy diet, lack of exercise is also a major contributing factor. If you have a five-year-old who chooses to watch television or play video games rather than participating in more active play, help your child to get up and get moving into healthier activities. Moderate to vigorous activity will not only benefit your child now, but will help to build a healthier future. You can bank on it!
Chiropractor Ventura: Chiropractic Is A Natural, Drug-Free Approach to ADHD
Posted by: | CommentsChiropractor Ventura believes in the many benefits of pediatric chiropractic, especially for kids with ADHD symptoms: Have you heard that chiropractors treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)? Well, that’s not completely correct. Chiropractors don’t “treat” ADHD. But, chiropractic care can absolutely help children, and adults too, who suffer from it. The reason that chiropractic treatment is effective is that ADHD is a neurological disorder. Chiropractic manipulations not only effective in reducing nervous system impedence in general, but an adjustment can be precisely directed to stimulate under-active areas of the brain and calm over-active areas as well. Because a chiropractic approach to ADHD is natural and drug-free, a large number of parents choose chiropractic care over the standard medical practice of giving children Class 2 psychotropic drugs that have dramatically negative side effects such as personality changes and permanent alterations in the brain. Nearly all of parents who’ve looked to chiropractic treatment for their children have reported marvelous behavioral changes as a result.
Because of the differences between the manner in which boys and girls employ the two hemispheres of their brain, ADHD seems to happen to more boys than girls and, in addition, is often more apparent and easily recognizable in the behavior of boys as opposed to of girls. Some of the symptoms that are most prominent include a hard time concentrating and sitting still, inability to control impulsive thoughts and behaviors, easily distracted by noises and activities, incessant movement of fingers, hands, arms, feet, or legs.
Many children who exhibit ADHD symptoms are hypersensitive to certain foods, such as dairy or gluten products, and sugars and artificial sweeteners. In addition, they routinely have a hypersensitive reaction to additives in foods, herbicides and pesticides used to grow non-organic fruits and vegetables, and laundry products such as detergents, fabric softeners, and other chemicals. Often, the exclusion of these environmental agencies can do a lot to reduce ADHD symptoms.
Determining the presence of spinal anomalies and particular responses to specific neurological tests are included in the complete examination offered by your Ventura Chiropractor.
You may be able to assist your child in getting his or her life back in balance through natural, safe chiropractic care. Before taking drastic pharmaceutical measures, if your child exhibits the symptoms of ADHD, make an appointment with your chiropractor for a complete evaluation. For the health of your child, call today!
Chiropractor Ventura Offers Expert Chiropractic Care For Kids!
Posted by: | CommentsChiropractor Ventura is a strong believer in pediatric chiropractic care because it encourages a stronger, healthier immune system, as well as having many other benefits. Below is a recent news story, by Kim Painter of USA Today, that sheds some positive light on how chiropractic care can help your children:
Melanie Booth never expected to take her baby to a chiropractor. But when son Mac was 3 months old and having problems — difficulty with nursing, apparent discomfort when lying on his tummy and a tendency to turn his head only one way — his pediatrician recommended she do just that.
Booth, a university professor in Portland, Ore., found that her lactation consultant and several friends also endorsed chiropractic care for kids.
BETTER LIFE: More on parenting and kids’ health
After one visit, she was a believer, too: As chiropractor Elise Hewitt worked on Mac, “he began to quiver and shake, and it kind of scared my husband and me,” Booth says. “But she explained (she) was releasing energy that was stored up incorrectly in his body and particularly his spine. … And almost immediately, we saw a change in his ability to move his neck.” The nursing and tummy time problems cleared up, too, Booth says, as Mac continued treatments over several months.
Stories such as Booth’s help explain why nearly 3% of children in the USA were treated with chiropractic or osteopathic manipulation in 2007, making it the second-most common form of complementary or alternative medicine for children, a government report said recently. (Most common: natural products, such as fish oil and herbs.)
Chiropractors say they welcome the scrutiny. Hewitt says: “I wish there were more high-level studies.” But she also says she is comfortable treating kids based on preliminary research, 100 years of chiropractic history and her own experiences.
One large safety review, published in 2007, did find a few serious injuries in children, including one death from a brain bleed and one case of paralysis. But there was no proof spinal manipulation caused the injuries and no way to estimate how common such injuries might be, says Sunita Vohra of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.
“Serious harms may be rare but are possible,” she says. She is working on further studies.
“I suspect that adverse events are very rare,” says Kathi Kemper, professor of pediatrics at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C. She wouldn’t refer a child to a chiropractor for non-musculoskeletal problems but wouldn’t ask parents to stop visits if they perceive benefits.
Word-of-mouth, not research, brings most parents to Jeanne Ohm, a chiropractor in Media, Pa., and executive coordinator of the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association. Parents “are usually referred by someone whose asthma went away or whose ear infections went away,” she says.
Ohm says she does not promise to cure any ailment in a particular child. She emphasizes broader goals: “Taking stress and tension off the nervous system affects their whole physical body and their mental state. We look at the whole person.”
Chiropractor Ventura: Pediatric Chiropractic Can Help Your Child's Ear Infections
Posted by: | CommentsChiropractor Ventura has years of experience treating children and knows that pediatric chiropractic can not only help your child’s ear infections, but can improve his or her overall health: The most prevailing reason for visits to a pediatrician is earache. By the age of three years, more than 70 percent of children will have had at least one experience of earache, and about a third will have had more than three incidents. What you might not expect, however, is that earache is also the most common reason for children under the age of five years to be taken to the chiropractor’s office.
How chiropractic Care Relates to Earache and Ear Infections
A pediatrician who determines that a child with an earache has a middle ear infection will normally prescribe antibiotics as a typical course of treatment. Advanced analysis, however, has ascertained that this is often imprudent. Antibiotics are only effective against bacterial pathogens, and because the child’s middle ear infection may be generated by a virus, antibiotics are ineffectual. This may be the explanation for a child’s chronic ear infections.
One of the many determinations that a Ventura chiropractor can make is whether the earache or ear infection is produced by irritation of the small nerves in the spine, called free nerve endings.
An abnormal tension in the small muscles of the neck is created when these nerve endings are irritated. Pressure created on the lymphatic drainage ducts as a result of muscle tension can prevent adequate drainage from inside the ear. This problem stops the body from naturally rectifying the problem. Additionally, balance can also be affected.
Inadequate drainage of lymphatic ducts can be discovered by a chiropractor if there is more tension in the neck and paraspinal muscles on the side with the earache. The chiropractor also looks for spinal vertebrae that are either marginally out of alignment or are not moving within their normal range. This problem may have been the result of any one of the many bangs, jolts and falls that almost all children undergo in the early years of their life. Restoration of normal lymph drainage is usually accomplished with a short regimen of treatments that include spinal adjustments and manipulation of the neck muscles. If your child is experiencing the pain of an earache or an ear infection, call your Ventura chiropractor as soon as possible.
Advanced Research and Guidelines
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), ear infection, the most prevalent childhood illness after the common cold, accounts for nearly 30 million doctor visits every year. Furthermore, at least 6 million courses of antibiotics are unnecessarily prescribed for the affliction.Just recently, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released new guidelines for treating pediatric ear inflammation, and specifically recommended a period of “watchful waiting” since, in many cases, infections clear up on their own, without medication.
The American Chiropractic Association (ACA) endorses the AAP on the guidelines and emphasizes that chiropractic management is a “good first option” for treating ear infection conservatively. “Doctors of chiropractic have been treating children for decades with great success – helping them to avoid painful ear infections, antibiotic overuse and resistance, and ear tube surgery,” said ACA President Donald
