4 days ago I became an uncle when my brother and his wife had their first child. My brother's wife is one of those new age, alternative holistic medicine types and I was informed this morning that she was taking my 4 day old nephew to a chiropractor for an exam and alignment....

Now this blew my mind because up until now I have been completely ignorant of people doing this with babies. I never knew that casual and regular chiropractic for newborns was even a practice. Nevertheless I did some research and sure enough it is claimed that this can be very good for early development.

Personally, I would think that manipulating anything in a newborn baby would be to risky considering that their bones are so brittle and not fully developed but hey, I am not a doctor, what do I know.

Maybe it is much more common than I thought and has been for a long time and I just need to keep myself more informed on such things.

Although, I did find in my research that this practice is still debated. It is not the benefits that are debated but the high-risk involved and whether it should be done at all is the issue amongst doctors and chiropractors, from my understanding.

Has anyone else ever heard of this?

I'm no doctor but it definitely sounds dangerous as much is still soft for a newborn, especially in the first few days of being alive. They're taking a serious risk on a healthy new baby...the only way the risk would be justified imo is if the baby had serious spinal problems or something of the like that would require surgery.

Hopefully they won't resort to such pointless treatments if their baby actually becomes sick.

Chiropractic has no proven benefit for... anything, really. If your back hurts you might just as well get a massage. It sounds like a pointless risk.

That's a terrible idea, and will probably do more harm than good.

yeah, I don't know. My first reaction was a lot like all of yours and it still is, more or less. In the few things I read on it though, it seems that a lot of people swear on it.

When a baby is born, apparently, their spine and neck goes through hell. Now this is all based off what I read, but apparently doing chiropractic when the body is still that "malleable"(may not be the right word but you know what I mean) can prevent a lot of spinal problems that are common in a lot of people as they get older.

Also, the chiropractor is not popping, pulling and cracking like they would do with any of us but instead is very, VERY gentle. My brother's wife said she could see the difference instantly.

What they did is they laid the baby on her chest face down and very gently did massaging and some light manipulation along his spine and neck. She said that before they started the baby was all clutched up like a baby usually is when they are awake but afterwards he was limp as a noodle... which is a good thing, I guess.

I really don't know how I feel about it, I guess that is why I made this thread.

And of course there are obvious risk no matter how beneficial it might be in the long run..

Where in the world are you? I'm given to understand that what one must do to (legally) call oneself a chiropractor varies across the world.

Don't take this the wrong way, but I would be concerned for the sake of your nephew if they are into that holistic medicine stuff and are taking a kid to a chiropractor.

U.S. and I am not even going to get into what that entails as far as holistic alternatives vs. real medicine and practice is concerned... lol.

I am not sure about what kind of scrutiny a person must go through to become a chiropractor though...

I am a big skeptic of "holistic medicine stuff" and I am concerned. Maybe I am just deluding myself trying to find the possible good that could come out of taking a newborn to a chiropractor...

Neither are chiropractors in many cases...

This sounds like an absolutely horrible idea, too much can go wrong, especially at such a young age.

See, I thought I was just being to skeptical and closed minded when I initially reacted negatively to this but so far every response has been negative as well.

It is a pretty good indication of how the percentage of people who would see the obvious dangers in taking a newborn to chiropractor would outweigh those who think it is a good idea.

More fringe holistic malpractice if you ask me.

It would be one thing if there was a major un-alignment or something and doctors can see no other alternative but that isn't the case here.

I don't think it's that bad of an idea, a chiropractor that I knew said that he did an alignment on his own daughter when she was only a few days old, but it was just 'jiggling' a little bit, not any thing major. I see a chiropractor myself every once in a while, as my neck has a habit of getting twisted out of shape pretty easily.

Man.... I guess you just have to have A LOT of trust in the person giving your baby an alignment.

I have seen chiropractors a lot as well due to a bad back but I just can't imagine it being done on a 4 day old baby...

Oh good grief!

No! He is a newborn!

Do everything you can to talk them out of this, it can only be detrimental.

I for one am completely allergic to all types of scammers and quacks, with a special hatred reserved for scammers in the medical field.*

Being 'New Age' is all fine and dandy, but when it comes to children one should trust actual medicine and not some quack who lives in a fantasy world.

*There is zero proof for the so-called benefits of chiropracty, it is not a recognised medical treatment and anyone can call himself a chiropractor as there are no recognised medical training courses for this.

^

This.

Yeah, that's what I thought. They have already done it, this morning, I don't know if they plan to do it anymore or not. Hope not.

Thousands of babies are born each day, and a very large majority of them get no such treatment, yet a very large majority of them also turn out fine. Gentle or not, having someone try to fiddle around and shape a child at such a young age can not be good.

It's terrible when well intentioned parents do potentially harmful things to their children, in full belief that they are doing the right thing. Most likely with a well intentioned chiropractor as well.

Tell em you'll get child services involved. Perhaps such a thing will make them think twice, or snap them back to reality.

I seriously can not fathom considering doing this to a newborn. I have become an uncle twice the past year and those little guys are just so helpless and precious, you gotta be careful with 'em.

That is the problem with the popularity of holistic and alternative medicine in pop culture. "Doctors are just greedy butchers who want to cut everyone open"... This is the mentality that is pushed anyways.

Of course not all of alternative medicine and practice is bad but you know what I mean.

LOL, I can't do that to my own brother.

My brother is like me though, I actually can't believe he allowed it this morning, and I will talk to him. I have not spoken to him today but knowing my brother I am sure he had doubts about it in the first place...

To quote Tim Minchin, "Alternative medicine, by definition, either has not been proven to work, or has been proven not to work. Because you know what we call alternative medicine that's been proven to work? Medicine."

There is a tremendous amount of quackery carried out by chiropractors. Most of the claims they make have absolutely no basis in any kind of actual medical trials; at best they're charging for something that has not been shown to have any benefit, and at worst they can do some real damage.

I saw one of these sessions on tv. I don't know which one is harder to see, a train wreck or a baby being stretched like a ragdoll.

I have to remember that quote. I think it sums up the the problem with alternative medicine clearly and succinctly.

This sounds like complete and utter crap. First of all, millions of babies are born each year, and the amount of spinal problems that occur in old age aren't caused by issues with delivery, but rather the literal lifetime that the person has been bending their spine each day. The whole notion of chiropractic "medicine" is very suspect at best on advlts, let alone newborns.

Within the United States, chiropractics have to have what is called a "first professional degree" - which is basically akin to a bachelor's degree in the field (source: http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/professional.doc). They are definitely not medical doctors, though I'm sure some chiropractors also have a medical doctorate.

That is very interesting, I did not know that. Thanks for the link.