CALGARY — Cassandra Murray is a true believer in the benefits of infant chiropractic care.
The 35-year-old mother of four from High River just south of Calgary, has been bringing her brood to Calgary chiropractor Judy Forrester for the past six years, and is just one of a growing number of parents looking to chiropractors as an alternative to traditional health care.
“She adjusted both of us today.
“I’m getting adjusted just because of carrying a baby around in a car seat,” said Murray, holding three-month-old Brady in her lap following an appointment at the clinic last month in northwest Calgary.
“Through all of my pregnancies she adjusted me to help align my hips and kind of helped baby drop near the end and actually while I was pregnant with Brady she helped me because I had a lot of sciatica, sharp pains up my back.”
Anyone who has ever heard the sharp crack of a chiropractor adjusting a patient’s spine might cringe at the idea of an infant being treated.
But for babies, the manipulation amounts to little more than a light touch or massage.
Proponents of infant chiropractic care say a child can experience misalignments of the spine during the birth process which can be corrected with this gentle manipulation.
And although there’s skepticism in the medical community, they also believe it can be a cure-all for digestive problems as well as for constipation, colic and even ear infections.
“I knew she wouldn’t adjust a baby the way she would adjust an adult,” explained Murray.
“When I got adjusted the first time it scared the crap out of me. It is just such a loud crack I had never experienced it before.
“But no, it’s a lot different.”
Murray had successfully brought her daughter Rylee, 4, to Forrester to deal with colic. Now she is worried about the range of motion in Brady’s neck.
“He would not turn his head to the left. That’s why he had a flattening of his head and in three appointments he looks to the left all the time now and it’s done wonders,” she said.
Forrester, who has been on the job for 32 years, estimates that about 65 per cent of her practice is infants and young children, and she sees about 20 new babies each month.
“A lot of people go to a chiropractor as a last resort.
“They’ve tried everything else. We’re only the last few years considered more mainstream so there’s been all those years where we’ve been held in a little bit of suspicious light,” Forrester said as she treated Brady.
“I’m just feeling his neck.
“We want to feel what the structures are doing because there can be just a normal deformity or what we call an anomaly,” she explained.
“I’m moving his head a little bit because I’m determining what the range of motion is between the vertebra, looking to see if there is any imbalance between the musculature which, in this little guy, is one of the specific things.”
Forrester said most patients who seek her services have done their homework but still need reassurance.
“What they want to do is the laying on of the eyeballs, especially if they’re pregnant because they are making decisions for more than themselves or they’re bringing their babies in,” she said with a chuckle.
“But they’ve usually been referred and kind of have their ducks in a row but want to make sure that I don’t have hairy armpits and chew garlic and I’m going to be gentle.”
There was a time when the gap between chiropractors and doctors was very wide indeed.
That has changed, said Forrester, who receives referrals from some family doctors and pediatricians.
“It’s more of a collaborative approach now.”
The president of the Alberta Chiropractic Association said the number of parents bringing in their little ones for treatment is growing, and he’s seen many children in his 35 years of practising.
“People would believe as the twig is bent so grows the tree.
“People would bring kids in for spinal checkups in the same way they would make their first dental appointment,” said Dr. Clark Mills, who has an office just west of Edmonton.
But there are no guarantees.
“I’m not saying it’s the kind of thing where chiropractic bats a thousand but in the odd infant, if you’ve got one of those screaming mimis who is going night and day these parents are literally at their wits’ end,” he noted.
“Sometimes a little bit of manual adjustment of the spine seems to calm them down. Sometimes it’s miraculous and sometimes it takes a few sessions.”
According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine there is no actual evidence that spinal manipulation helps with the treatment of colic.
“The totality of this evidence fails to demonstrate the effectiveness of this treatment,” read the website.
“It is concluded that the above claim is not based on convincing data from rigorous clinical trials.”
Some members of the medical profession were hesitant to discuss the practice but Dr. Paul Woods, the clinical/medical director for the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Calgary, was willing to weigh in.
Woods said he is “open-minded about complementary therapies” and does refer some of his patients to chiropractors for treatment for some muscular-skeletal problems, back disorders, and problems with peripheral joints such as shoulders and knees.
“A lot of it depends if it is the type of person that think they would benefit and I do have that conversation because some people are terrified of chiropractors and some embrace them for all things,” said Woods.
He is not enthusiastic about infants being taken to chiropractors for treatment because they are not able to verbally communicate what is wrong with them. But he acknowledges there’s no indication that it will be harmful.
“I haven’t see a child that has been injured by it and I don’t think there are any reports of any miraculous life changing events for these children,” he added.
“I am doubtful about claims such as food intolerance or ear infections and that sort of thing.
“It’s kind of outside scientific feasibility which is one of the sort of assumptions that we do to evaluate any treatment.”
But Woods acknowledges that the two professions are working a lot more hand-in-hand now then they did in the past.
“I trained 25 years ago and back then it was doctors hate chiropractors and chiropractors hate doctors,” said Woods.
“I really have tried to get away from that because I do believe chiropractors do provide valuable care in certain conditions.
“I try and make it a collaborative relationship rather than a turf issue.”