Understanding Subluxation: How It Impacts Your Child's Health
We’ve heard it too often from worried parents…
“I just don’t know why my baby won’t stop crying.” - Mom of a 6 week old
“My child takes an hour and a half to go to sleep. I don’t know why it is so hard.” - Dad of a 4 year old
“My kid doesn’t poop for 5 days, and my pediatrician says that’s normal.” Mom of a 1 year old
As parents you just want answers to why your child continues to struggle and how to help them.
This article is going to cover the underlying cause of chronic childhood illnesses and conditions that you won’t hear about by any standard pediatrician or medical office.
In this article we are going to break down:
The missing link to raising healthy kids
The definition of subluxation
The long term effects of subluxation on your child’s health
Signs and symptoms of subluxation
What causes a subluxation and contributing factors to subluxation
How to test for subluxation
Practical tips for parents to help reduce subluxation
Unfortunately, the medical definition of subluxation is outdated and simplified, leading to a lack of understanding so let’s dive right into this article!
The Missing Link To Raising Healthy Kids
Ask any parent, “How do I raise healthy kids?” and they would probably all tell you the same list of things:
1. A healthy and balanced diet
2. Regular Physical Activity
3. Adequate Quality Sleep
4. Emotional and Mental Well-being
5. A Safe Environment
7. Social Interaction and Play
8. Education and Learning
9. Healthy parents leading by example
At the core of all of these nine ways to raise a healthy child is how a child processes the world. How is the digestive system processing a healthy, balanced diet? How is the body interacting with the surfaces around it, like the ground, to allow it to crawl, walk and run? How is the body’s endocrine system processing sleep chemicals like melatonin to allow the body to go to sleep and stay asleep? How is the body processing stress and transitions like starting at a new school? How is the body processing new and familiar environments and does it feel safe? How is the body processing new types of interactions with new people - kids and adults? How is the body processing new information and how can it stack them to create new skills? How does a child process their parent’s health habits and adopt similar ones?
All of the points on the list above require the same 3 steps (the 3 P’s):
Perceive: perceive what’s going on, inside and outside of the body = information gathering (in other words, what we see, hear, feel, taste, sense, etc.)
Process: process information to know what to do next = information integration (”What should I be prioritizing? Let me focus on that.”)
Produce: produce an appropriate response = health and well-being (behavior, the immune response, digestive activity, mood, etc.)
But what is responsible for perceiving, processing and producing health? Believe it or not, it is just one elegant system - the nervous system. This is why we at Sprout Family Chiropractic call it “the master control system” because it plays a crucial role in regulating and coordinating all the functions of the body through the 3 P’s we just discussed. And this is what we find is not being addressed in traditional healthcare—nervous system health.
Neurodevelopmental Hierarchy
Brain development of a baby and child is like building a house where each stage of development is a crucial layer of the building.
Foundation of the House = Brain & Nervous System
The brain and nervous system form the foundation of the house. Just as a strong foundation is essential for the stability and integrity of the entire house, a well-functioning nervous system is crucial for all other aspects of your child's development and proper growth.
Without a solid foundation, the house becomes unstable and unable to support the weight of the upper floors. Similarly, without a properly functioning nervous system, other developmental functions cannot operate efficiently and babies and kids start to struggle to just do the “baby basics” (see below).
First Floor = The Baby Basics aka Eat, Poop, Sleep
The first floor of the “house” represents the basic physiological functions such as eating, pooping, and sleeping. These "baby basics" rely on the strength of the foundation for support. If the foundation of the neurodevelopmental hierarchy is compromised, a child’s ability to eat, poop and sleep with ease will be affected. This leads to issues with basic functions, affecting latch and nursing, digestion and sleep patterns for children.
Second Floor = Motor Function (Gross Motor and Fine Motor)
The second floor represents motor functions, including gross motor skills (like crawling, cruising, and walking) and fine motor skills (like grasping and manipulating objects).
These skills build upon the "baby basics". If a child has eating problems, digestive problems and sleep problems, the body will struggle to truly master motor development - this is often seen as delayed motor milestones or skipped motor milestones. In our pediatric chiropractic practice we often see milestones out of order in addition to missed motor milestones which means the neural or brain connections aren’t properly being formed. Proper brain connections are necessary for muscle control and coordination, ensuring smooth and effective motor development.
Top Floor = Big Brain Functions (Higher Cognitive Functions)
The top floor of the “house” represents higher cognitive functions such as speech, memory, emotional regulation, and social interactions. These "big brain functions" are the final stage of brain development and depend on all the lower levels being stable and well-constructed.
If the lower levels of the neurodevelopmental hierarchy (baby basics and motor functions) aren’t properly supported by a healthy nervous system, higher cognitive functions are likely to be affected. For instance, poor motor skills can impact a child's ability to interact socially, and disrupted sleep can affect memory and emotional regulation. Some of the most common things parents see with poor motor skills is clumsiness, poor posture, attention and focus issues (e.g. ADHD).
With such an important job for growth and development throughout childhood, shouldn’t we be talking about the health of our nervous system and nervous system regulation way more?
We think so, which is why we specialize in neurologically-focused chiropractic care, because the health of the nervous system dictates the health of every other system of the body. We truly believe this is the missing link to so many chronic childhood illness and conditions. Challenges such as:
Torticollis (favoring one side)
Plagiocephaly or “flat head syndrome:
Colic and reflux
Constant, inconsolable crying and “fussiness”
Excessive sweating
Headaches
Severe allergies and respiratory infections
You can read more about what is the nervous system, function of the nervous system and nervous system imbalance in this other article.
For the rest of this article we are going to talk about the #1 thing we see clinically in our office in San Diego that negatively impacts the health of the nervous system and it is called “subluxation.”
What is Subluxation?
Simply put subluxation is stress on the nervous system, which can lead to a range of issues, including digestive problems, sensory processing issues, emotional and behavioral challenges, and immune system challenges.
Subluxation is a three-part problem and it causes problems with our 3 P’s (perceive, process and produce) of health.
The first part is a misalignment in the neuro-spinal system (the musculoskeletal system + the spinal).
The second part is fixation & tension as a result of the first part.
The third part happens from parts 1 and 2 - neurological interference & nervous system imbalance.
Why is a subluxation a problem for the nervous system?
Imagine your nervous system is like a telephone network, where your brain is the central switchboard and your body is the network of phones. The phone lines represent the nerves that carry messages between the brain and various parts of the body.
Healthy Nervous System = Clear Phone Line
When the phone line is clear, you can have a conversation without any issues. The messages are transmitted clearly, and both parties can understand each other perfectly. This is similar to how, under normal conditions, the nervous system allows for clear communication between the brain and the body.
Subluxation = Static on the Line
Now, imagine there's static on the phone line. This static represents a subluxation, which interferes with the messages being sent. When there’s static on the line, parts of the conversation are lost or misunderstood. You might hear only bits and pieces, making it difficult to understand the full message.
Improper Input to the Nervous System → The Brain Gets Confused → Nervous System Sends the Wrong Commands
Just like static on a phone line prevents clear communication, a subluxation disrupts the nerve signals traveling to and from the brain. This means the brain receives (PERCEIVES) distorted or incomplete information about what’s happening in the body. As a result the brain doesn’t know what to prioritize and can only integrate (PROCESS) the improper signals which leads to the wrong message sent to the rest of the body (PRODUCE). This can lead to things like:
Similar to if the static on the phone line isn’t fixed, the conversations will continue to be frustrating and ineffective if a nervous system stays stuck in a subluxation state, the affected parts of the body may start to show more severe symptoms and have long-term health consequences.
Clearly subluxation is a significant issue that affects important functions like immune function, digestive function and motor function. This is why we at Sprout Family Chiropractic specifically specialize in the nervous system and neurologic function for babies and kids because it truly does impact health as a whole.
By figuring out whether subluxation is the root cause of your child's health problems, you can take steps to eliminate it and get your child's health back on track.
Next we’ll cover the signs and symptoms of subluxation and how to know if your child should see a pediatric chiropractor.
Common Signs and Symptoms of a Dysregulated Nervous System in a Child
“How do I know if my child needs to see a chiropractor?” is a common question when new parents call our office and it is a great question. If you’ve asked any of these questions, these are signs your child may have subluxation and their nervous system is dysregulated:
Your baby should see a pediatric chiropractor if you’ve asked:
Why is my baby constantly crying for hours or is inconsolable?
Why is my baby having trouble feeding or trouble breastfeeding?
Why does my baby gets really red?
Is it normal that my baby sweats a lot?
Why is my baby straining to go poop?
Why won’t my baby lay on their back?
Your child should see a pediatric chiropractor if you’ve asked:
Why is my child so sensitive to noise or lights?
What causes anxiety in my child?
Why is my child so angry?
Why is my child getting so many ear infections?
Why is my kid having trouble falling asleep?
What causes ADHD in kids?
Your teenager should see a pediatric chiropractor if you’ve asked:
Why is my teen so depressed?
What can I do about my kid’s bad posture?
Why is my teenager struggling in school?
Why does my child have so many headaches and migraines?
Why is my teenager so tired?
What causes neck pain in teenagers?
If you have asked any of these questions or stayed up late Googling them and you’re looking for how to help your child, neurologically-focused chiropractic, like the care we provide at Sprout Family Chiropractic in San Diego is the answer. You can learn more about our specialized approach here.
What Causes Subluxation?
Put simply – stress and toxicity.
While stress is actually a normal, healthy part of life because it helps us gain resiliency, strength, and adaptability being overloaded with stress is detrimental to our health.
At Sprout Family Chiropractic we break up stress into 3 different buckets: physical stress, chemical stress and emotional stress.
Physical Stress
One of the primary causes of subluxation is physical stress and trauma. Physical causes of subluxation include:
Falls and sports injuries
Car accidents
Birth trauma*
Poor posture
Overly heavy backpacks
Prolonged sitting
*In a 2015 article, 99 out of 100 infants experienced “somatic dysfunction” (i.e. subluxation), regardless of mode of delivery and risk increased with increased length of labor.
Chemical Stress
Another cause of subluxation is chemical stress. Chemical causes of subluxation include:
Nutritional deficiencies
Dehydration
Exposure to environmental pollutants and toxins
Highly processed, inflammatory foods
Emotional Stress
The third type of stress we talk about is emotional and psychological stress. And we want to not these are not only as important to consider as physical stress and chemical stress, but chronic emotional stress can be the cause of longer lasting, and sometimes lifelong health conditions. Emotional and psychological causes of subluxation include:
Anxiety
Depression
Body dysmorphia
Anger issues
Emotional abuse
What we have also found taking care of kid after kid is that regardless of the type of stress (physical, chemical or emotional) the body stores it and if unaddressed it results in subluxation.
By being aware of the physical, chemical, and emotional factors that contribute to subluxation, you as parents can better support your child's neurological development and nervous system health, ensuring they grow up strong and healthy. Encouraging healthy habits such as maintaining good posture, staying physically active, managing stress, and following a balanced diet can significantly reduce the risk but the fact of the matter is however, we can’t get rid of all of life’s stressors. So what can parents do to take proactive steps correct and prevent subluxation? Seek pediatric chiropractors that specialize in testing and addressing the nervous system!
Neurologically-Focused Pediatric Chiropractic Care in San Diego
Neurologically-focused chiropractic care specifically addresses subluxation by removing the stuck stress in the nervous system.
Imagine your child carrying a backpack to school. At the start of the day, the backpack is light and manageable. However, as the day progresses, more and more items are added to it—books, assignments, gym clothes, and even some heavy textbooks. Eventually, the backpack becomes so heavy that your child struggles to carry it.
The physical, chemical and emotional stressors that kids encounter every day are like the items being added to the backpack. Initially, it may be manageable, but as more stressors accumulate—schoolwork, social interactions, growing pains, etc.—the burden becomes overwhelming.
At Sprout Family Chiropractic our adjusting style is safe, gentle, and incredibly effective at correcting subluxation, removing stress and restoring function and balance to the nervous system.
To understand exactly what each child needs we use a tool called INSiGHT Subluxation Scanning Technology. In just 10-15 minutes, these scans can find, measure, and track subluxation patterns. This gives parents a clear understanding of what to expect with care and what the nervous system is doing as care progresses. We use the scan findings, exam findings and the health goals you have for your child to create an exact, personalized, and customized adjusting care plan for your baby or child. The INSiGHT scans take all the guesswork out of where exactly the areas of stress are in the nervous system.
Let’s pause and talk about the #1 most important elements of creating long lasting neurologic health is consistency. Consistent detection and correction of subluxation resets the nervous system before the stress accumulates and compounds.
At Sprout Family Chiropractic we use a variety of gentle adjusting techniques to provide the most effective and most comfortable level of care for each child. We also perform progress exams and progress INSiGHT scans every 8-12 visits to check-in with how well the nervous system is unwinding, if we need to make any adjustments to visit frequency and allow parents to truly understand what stage of neurologic healing their child is going through at every step of the way.
Next Step for Natural Health for Kids
Parents come into our office every day exhausted and frustrated by the fact that their regular pediatrician and a whole list of medical specialists still can’t find what’s causing their child’s chronic health challenges. When they see their child’s scans, without fail one of the first things parents tell us is, “I wish I knew all of this sooner. Why didn’t anyone talk to me about the nervous system with my child’s condition?”
We hate hearing parents feel so lost but are so excited by the hope they finally experience when they see the amazing improvements their child experiences under consistent chiropractic care. If your child has experienced chronic health struggles and you feel like you’ve hit a wall with improvements in other therapies and specialists, neurologically-focused chiropractic care is the answer to get your child from struggling to thriving!