Don’t Take Your Child to a Chiropractor
If you have a child, and if something is wrong with him (something always seems wrong), someone will advise you to take the child to a chiropractor. You will probably hear this recommendation even if everything is in order. Friends, do not take your baby to a chiropractor.
Wait, why do people want you to take your child to a chiropractor if everything is okay? Because, according to chiropractors, only a chiropractor can detect tiny spinal displacements that are definitely completely real ( they are not ) that cause all problems and not childhood problems ( there is no evidence of this ).
So what’s the harm? Well, manipulating a person’s spine, especially their neck, can end badly. The children died and became paralyzed as a result of manipulation of the spine; nine severe cases were collected in this 2007 study published in Pediatrics . Five of these were called by chiropractors. (Others included a physician, a physical therapist, and two individuals whose profession was not reported.)
All medical procedures involve certain risks, so it is up to us, patients and parents, to decide which risks are justified. For example, vaccines in very, very rare cases cause serious illness. But they are still worth it, because refusing vaccinations is more dangerous than taking risks with regular childhood vaccinations. Measles causes pneumonia in 1 in 20 children who develop the disease and death in 1 in 1000 . The measles vaccine causes a life-threatening allergic reaction in one out of every 3.5 to 10 million doses . The clever decision is understandable.
Chiropractors do not provide the treatment needed. Any topical problems they claim to treat, such as ear infections or reflux, your real doctor can cure, at least as well. (A chiropractor is more likely to try to sell you probiotics or something on the way to the door, but I trust you can figure out where to buy them yourself.) If your baby has a breastfeeding problem, find an international commission certified by breastfeeding – even insurance will cover that.
Update 5/2/2018: We previously wrote that “In 2013, an Australian chiropractor broke a child’s neck .” The regulatory board reportedly concluded that the child’s neck was not broken.