The way I like to think of it is the infant needs to take a certain pathway to be born.  After all it is the infant, not the mother who initiates birth.  If there is a twist in the mother’s pelvis, making the birth canal narrower or not making it as ‘elastic’ as it should then the baby will be thinking “I’m not going through there”.  Inevitably the child does not want to harm itself.  This begs a further question, would a child be designed in a way that would injure the mother, its caretaker?  The answer is of course not.  So why would a child be born that is too large for the mother’s pelvis?  The issue will lie in the way in which the pelvis, and especially the way in which the sacrum (the bone the spine sits on) is allowed to work during pregnancy and childbirth.  It has been proposed that this sacral misalignment may contribute to the primary causes of stalled and delayed labour via interference to the nerve supply of the uterus, pelvic misalignment and torsion and tension on specific ligaments and muscles.  The net result of these tense ligaments and muscles and their effect upon the uterus is of the prevention of the baby comfortably assuming the best possible position for birth.

Chiropractic care therefore becomes very simple: realigning the pelvis and freeing up the nerve impulses to one very important muscle, the uterus.  After all, muscles are controlled by nerves, and the uterus is one large muscle that needs to contract and relax during labour.  By using non-invasive, gentle chiropractic techniques, we have seen breech babies ‘turn’ in front of our eyes!  We have also had reports from clients, after being checked by their midwives, that their babies have gone from a breech position to a ‘head down’ position – all through chiropractic care.

This all makes for a (hopefully) safer, easier (physically and emotionally), and less invasive delivery process for both mother and child.

With the new school year comes new schoolbooks, new travel arrangements, more clothes to carry, and inevitably a heavier bag.  The bag, no matter what the weight will be carried correctly – on two shoulders -, or incorrectly -on one shoulder.  The carrying of the schoolbag will affect the growth and development of the spine, and consequently the performance of the nervous system.  It doesn’t sound like much, but once we scratch the surface, the innocent school bag can become a lot more damaging than meets the eye.  After all, kids are so resilient…lets rethink this attitude and prevent problems occurring in the future for them.

In a study done with New Zealand school children¹ they found that “58% of children had experienced spinal pain. In total, 31% of children reported that pain occurred in one part of the back, while 28% stated that pain presented in more than one spinal region. Pain in the last month was found to be equally prevalent in the low back (35%) and neck (36%) regions. Low back pain was associated with the most severe pain and pain lasting for the longest duration when compared with the upper back and neck regions”.  Further to this a Norwegian study suggests that once a child reports back pain, this will become recurrent.²

This is just talking about pain.  Low back pain in Australia³ over a decade ago is said to have cost us directly 1.02 billion dollars and indirectly 8.15 billion dollars giving a total cost of 9.17 billion dollars.  OUCH!  What are the long-term personal costs? The inability to concentrate as they can not sit still which will lead to poor grades; poor or improper bowel movements, not allowing the body to fully rid itself of all the toxins then leading to skin rashes, flaky skin and even eczema; menstrual problems, heavy periods, irregular periods, and later in life problems with conceiving; tight hamstring muscles which will restrict movement and keep the child running as fast as they can; repeated injuries; tiredness; emotional problems; and the list goes on.  These are all due to spinal misalignments effecting the spinal nerves.

What can you do at the beginning of the year to ensure you are doing as much as you can with the resources that you have?  Here are four easy to follow steps:

1. Ensure your child carries their backpack correctly.  That is on two shoulders. If it stays on one, it too will create further problems in the neck, back and shoulder region.

2. Have the backpack packed at 10% of the child’s weight.

3. Make sure the backpack fits them.

4. Pack the back pack correctly with heavier items closest to the back pack where it is in contact to your child’s back with the lighter items further away.

My kids seemed to be so worried about their looks and looking cool, they started to wear their backpack on one shoulder.  In my view there is nothing cool about looking like Quasimodo.  The unfortunate thing about our spine is we cannot see it.  If our spine was on our face we would take so much more care of it!

Your children are continually growing and developing.  Don’t let them develop bad habits, or for that matter don’t let them develop a back problem that will lead into a health problem when it can be prevented in the first place.  Remember, as the twig is bent, so grows the tree.

1. The prevalence and characteristics of back pain among school children in New Zealand.  Trevelyan FC, Legg SJ.

2.Musculoskelet Disord. 2011 (May 16);   12:   98 Per Kjaer, Niels Wedderkopp, Lars Korsholm, and Charlotte Leboeuf-Yde

3. Asia Pac J Public Health. 2003;15(2):79-87. Low back pain in Australian adults: the economic burden. Walker BF, Muller R, Grant WD.

One of the key observations seen in kids and ladies due to the swimming attire is the ‘hungry bum’.  That is the swimming costume on one side only disappearing into the gluteal cleft (into the bottom).  What causes this, and why is it only one (and always the same) buttock?  The answer is quite simple.  It is because of a pelvic imbalance.  In other words, the pelvis is twisted.  This will create the gluteal or buttock muscles to change their shape.  As the shape changes (one of the buttocks will flatten out and the other will be more defined) the costume will not remain as tight onto the flattened muscle and start to ride up into the bottom.

What causes this?

It is often lifestyle that will create this issue.  The first point of call for problems can be how the baby lay in utero (in it’s mum’s tummy) or the birthing process.  As a young child this imbalance can be created by or cause issues like commando crawling. Falls on the bottom whilst learning to walk, the way in which children are carried by their parents, and sleeping position can all have an impact and create this imbalance.  Later in life, children, teens and adults will play unilateral sports such as golf, hockey and tennis; carry wallets in their back pocket and sit on the wallet; sit cross legged; or as mentioned previously will stand with more weight on one leg rather than weight bearing evenly on both legs.  Some of you may have noticed that when you purchase some new trousers or slacks and need to get the legs and hem taken up that one leg might have more to take up at the hem than the other.

Why would this be an issue?

The things that I have explained are all tell tale signs that something is out of balance.  In time this small, and irritating twist in the pelvis can start to erode on your day to day life and can be a sign of things to come.

For some the problem (the pelvic twist) can manifest as symptoms such as back, knee, hip or foot pain, and eventual wear and tear (arthritis) of these joints.  For others it might mean headache.  Sports people might continually tear one hamstring (the muscle behind the leg), have trouble stretching one hamstring (ie both legs can not stretch the same) or have continual muscle problems around the legs and buttocks. Due to the nature of the area being effected, the lower back and sacral region, nerves from this area can be effected.  As the nerve communication from this area is effected, much like a mobile phone signal continually ‘dropping out’, the organs that these nerves supply will not work to their full capacity.  These organs include the bowel (constipation, diahorrea,  irritable bowel, allergies and skin related disorders), bladder (increased frequency of urination, wetting the bed, urinary reflux, having to go to the bathroom at night, loss of bladder control) and reproductive organs (heavy periods, irregular menstrual cycle, infertility, sexual dysfunction).

It always amazes me how something that seems so small and seemingly insignificant at one point in time can manifest over the years and create so many further problems.  Not just problems to our health but to our way of life.  Have you ever stopped to think that what it would be like for your child to have a dry night, the impact that it has upon their self esteem; the ‘pressure’ placed on couples, or the pressure that they place upon themselves to conceive; what it would be like to be able to get a full night sleep – how rejuvenating it would be without having to get up continually to go to the bathroom or to the room of a child who wets the bed.

Take note of what your body is telling both yourself and what you notice in your children.  By looking after your body, as you look after your teeth every day by brushing them, your body will look after you.  This can be achieved by teaming up with a health care professional who is interested in not only eliminating pain and symptoms, but also in showing you ways in which you can stop recreating the problems.

Lets take this to the extreme.  Lets say you smoked all of your life and lead a high stress job. As a result of this activity, your coronary arteries have become blocked and you have decided, with the help of your heart surgeon that coronary bypass surgery is your best option.  So you have the surgery and a few weeks later you are back at the same desk, doing the same job, smoking just as many cigarettes.  Is this sensible?  I would not think so.  For one, how could have you prevented the whole occurrence in the first place, and secondly after the ‘life saving operation’ why would you continue to do the same things that put you into hospital?  It was Einstein who was quoted as saying the ‘Insanity was doing the same thing again and again yet expecting a different result.”

In order to make change, more often we need to shed rather than add.  Exercises will come and go, the habits that we form, both good and bad will last a lifetime.  The creation of the good habits and the cessation of the bad is where the longstanding changes lie.

Lets dissect this and see what other effects sitting has upon our bodies. We were born to be upright on two legs, and furthermore, we are meant to be mobile.  As we move, or more to the point walk, our brain becomes charged and more active.  However, from a young age, we sit stationary for prolonged periods of time, be it at school, on a computer, or watching TV.  Does sitting then have an effect upon our brain and upon the overall health of us?  After all, the brain will control and co-ordinate everything that we do, every second of our life.

Sitting encourages something called a ‘flexion position’, and over time this will lead to flexion dominance.  This is due to a decrease in activity levels to break up that maintained seated posture.  This will also affect our brain.  In the area of neuroplasticity (the want for the brain to continue to develop and grow new pathways for adaptation, growth, development and learning new tasks) the old adage stands – use it or lose it.  That is if you do not move, neural pathways will not function to their full capacity and quite the opposite for the laydown and growth of new pathways.  If we sit, our hamstrings will become tight due to the muscles becoming shorter. The hamstrings will learn that this is the ‘natural position’ for them.  Think of the number of hours you sit every day: at the desk, eating food, socialising, driving the car, riding on public transport.  What are the long term effects of this?

When looking at neurological dysfunction they can occur on a number of levels.  A stroke, for example is a neurological dysfunction, as is Parkinsons disease.  These are what are called Upper Motor Neuron Dysfunction (i.e. a condition effecting motor neurons – doing rather than sensing nerves – in the brain and the spinal cord).  One of the effects of these is tightness and in the flexor muscles.  The hamstring is a flexor muscle.  As we decrease our activity by prolonging our sitting we are becoming more flexor orientated.  As we sit and do not exercise our neurological system, are the tight hamstrings a manifestation of a central neurological problem?  How much repeated stress and micro trauma upon our brain and nervous system are we creating by our seated posture due to this flexor dominance?  Is sitting becoming more of a long term health dilemma than smoking ever will?  Is sitting doing more than creating just tight hamstrings, is it silently manifesting as upper motor neurone dysfunction?

The answer to combat this is simple.  Ensure you move every 20 to 30 minutes if you need to sit for a prolonged time, or work whilst standing – raise your desk.  We are creating more and more chronic disease because of our lifestyle.  Diseases such as heart disease and diabetes are largely preventable.  Is the degradation of our brain the next to follow due to the lifestyle that we are currently leading?

References:

1.                                    Leisure Time Spent Sitting in Relation to Total Mortality in a Prospective Cohort of US Adults Alpa V. Patel^*, Leslie Bernstein, Anusila Deka, Heather Spencer Feigelson, Peter T. Campbell, Susan M. Gapstur, Graham A. Colditz and Michael J. Thun American Journal of Epidemiology, Volume 172, Issue 4: 419-429

2.                  Prolonged sitting: is it a distinct coronary heart disease risk factor? Dunstan DW, Thorp AA, Healy GN. Curr Opin Cardiol. 2011 Sep;26(5):412-9.

Lets fast forward now to the present day.  I ran through one of our regular examinations on Jim last month, after all of these years of care, and Jim not missing a beat with his appointments.  I mentioned to him that it was fantastic to see someone such as him (he has just turned 80) still spritely,  still going on his overseas trips, still playing golf as often as he can, enjoying and getting the most out of life.  It was also great to continue to see his examination results continue to improve.

He replied straight away, ‘you know my friends always ask me why I come to a Chiropractor and I tell them, I am like an 80 year old car.  You have to look after it, get it serviced, make sure the wheels are aligned, the oils are all OK.  Then and only then can you enjoy the ride in that car’.

It makes a lot of sense to me, getting regular chiropractic checkups to advance and promote health, not just avoiding back pain, headaches and the like. Keep your body moving forward with Chiropractic!

Usain Bolt being adjusted by the Jamaican team chiropractor

photos of Usain Bolt

Bradley Wiggins with his gold medal for the 2012 Olympic Time Trial

the world’s fastest man, and the Olympic gold medalist in Beijing and London getting adjusted.

“I would estimate that at least 90% of world class athletes use Chiropractic on a regular basis to prevent injuries and to improve their performance” says Sean Atkins PhD Exercise Physiologist.

Multi Olympic gold medal winner and 2012 Tour de France champion Bradley Wiggins from Great Britain also swears by Chiropractic:

Here he is speaking about his Chiropractor Matt Rabin:
“I first started working with Matt at the end of 2008 following my success at the 2008 Beijing summer Olympics. After years of struggling with minor niggles that I had learned to live with, and having never really found the answer to my problems despite having sought numerous treatment options with no great success, I went to see Matt.

From my first session with him I had great results that were not short lived. That followed up with regular sessions I saw improvements that I had never seen before and that reflected in the way my body held up on a day to day basis which eventually saw me achieve 4th place in the 2009 Tour de France under his supervision.

Matt will undoubtedly remain an integral part of my medical support in the forthcoming seasons and lead up to the London 2012 Olympic Games.”

So what is it about chiropractic care and athletes?  It is all about sports performance and enhancement, the same as for you and me.  One of our young clients has found the same benefits in his athletic performances as these ‘big name, professional’ athletes.  Initially coming in for care because he injured himself during a soccer match, JB started to find out that his times in athletics began to drop dramatically after he had been adjusted.  So much so that he  was running personal best after personal best.  After noticing this, not only does JB  stick to his regular adjustment schedule, but will book in prior to major events for us to check him, make sure that he is in balance and that he can get the most out of his body.

In this interview, Chiropractic care and the athlete is beautifully summed up.

Dr. Matthew McAlees on NBC – Chiropractic & Athletes