Chiropractic Care and Birth Trauma
Trauma Isn’t Just Broken Bones
The term “birth trauma” sounds bad
. And it is. But, it is much more than what most of us think of when they hear these words. When you hear the word trauma maybe you think of a car crash or bones
poking through the skin. You’re correct! Birth traumas such as fractured collar bones, hip dislocations or dysplasias do occur. While those are traumatic – no doubt – I want to talk about a different sort of trauma that is every bit as harmful but often goes unseen
: neurological trauma. Neurological birth trauma affects the child’s nervous system
and is far more common than “blood and broken bones” birth traumas. Luckily, Px-trained pediatric chiropractors are trained to find and correct these neurological subluxations post-birth
.
How Birth Trauma Happen
It doesn’t take special training to watch a birth and understand that it is traumatic for the mom and baby. If you’ve experienced birth you’ve felt the stretching of tissues in the birth canal. Your baby has the pressure of moving down the vaginal canal and out of your pelvis (or stomach!) Birth is hard on both your bodies.
Each birth is unique in pain management, the infant’s size, location, time of delivery, and the stresses endured by the mom. From a birth trauma standpoint, the method of childbirth with the least amount of complications is natural childbirth – which means vaginal delivery without pain medications in the forest. Just kidding about the forest. But even in this ideal scenario, birth is often traumatic for the baby’s nervous system. Here’s how.
Labor and Delievery
When your baby is delivered in a typical hospital setting, your doctor
delivers the baby how they were trained to. If you have a vaginal birth, the baby descends through the birth canal and the head emerges. Your doctor is trained to take the baby’s head in their hands and physically twist the head so the shoulders are vertical making it easier to come out of the vagina. Once this is done, they bend the head side to side to get each shoulder out. This method of delivery is certainly effective at getting the baby out, but it is also effective at damaging the delicate nerves that are in the neck
.
As birth interventions are used on your baby, such as forceps, vacuums, C-sections, etc, the trauma’s only get easier to imagine
. Each of these interventions include additional traction or pulling forces on the baby’s neck, therefore causing additional sources of damage and trauma to the baby’s nervous system. Now, there are times and places where these interventions are medically necessary. But if these things occurred or were necessary for your child, it is a great reason to bring your child to a neurologically-focused pediatric chiropractor
.
Signs of Birth Trauma in Babies
There are many noticeable signs your baby or children experienced birth trauma and neurological stress, or subluxation. Such things include:
- Tilted or turned head to one side more often 🙂↔️
- Torticollis
- Favoring one side during nursing 👶
- Colic 😭
- Constipation
- ADHD/ADD
- Sensory processing issues
- Autism
- Ear infections
- Anxiety
- “Mom gut” feelings
Chiropractic Care can Help with Birth Trauma
If your child or a loved one experiences any of these now or in the past, we encourage you to see us at Ideal Family Chiropractic. We can help restore proper neurological function with our targeted and specific care
plans. The proper neurological function allows the body and mind to heal and regulate themselves. For more information read our blog post on pediatric chiropractic care.
A Peek at the Research
Because this topic can be a very sensitive one, we want to be sure to give you some supporting data. This BMJ article states that C-Sections are associated with type 1 diabetes, obesity, asthma, upper respiratory, gastrointestinal, ear, skin, and allergy issues at age 2. This study links sensory processing disorder and autism with pregnancy-related stressors, birth/delivery interventions, and childhood illness. This JAMA study states that C-Sections are about 20% more likely to lead to autism. This study shows a relationship between planned C-Sections and asthma. Here is a study that explains birth trauma as a primary reason for breastfeeding difficulties, and shows the forces associated with birth interventions.
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