Pregnancy is a beautiful and amazing experience. However, it can have a toll on your body and your baby’s. At the very least, a mother-to-be is carrying the additional weight of the baby, placenta, fluid, and 50% more blood volume. While your ligaments become extra stretchy to help accommodate these changes in the body, spine, pelvis, and in preparation to birthing a human being, the process usually results in back pain, neck pain, joint discomforts, and pelvic aching. Activities such as walking, swimming, yoga, Pilates, and stretching helps ease, but the reality is that a mother’s body and the infant’s is placed under great strain for the months leading up to birth, and not to forget to mention squeezing and pulling a big bundle of joy through one’s birthing canal. Carrying your child is not easy and for the health of yourself and your child, creating a comfortable pregnancy is crucial. For that, visiting a pregnancy chiropractor specializing in pregnancy and pediatric chiropractic (as myself) is important.

Pregnancy Chiropractor Care – Pre-Natal Chiropractics

As a mother, you have a little baby curled up in your uterus, gradually outgrowing his or her home. If your pelvis is not positioned in the optimal spot, the baby can have difficulty birthing in the head-down position. If your baby is facing posterior, the birth can take longer and be more difficult. Many times the mother can end up requiring forceps, vacuum extraction, or a C-section. Long and demanding births, where the baby is stuck along the way, can have its effect on the baby’s cranial bones and nervous system. The use of intervening tools like forceps, vacuums, or even pulling and twisting the baby’s neck bone doesn’t make it any better. These acts have massive impact on the infant’s cranial molding, such as causing flattened or coned head shapes. It also negatively impacts the nervous system, resulting in colic, poor latching and sucking, excessive crying, and unfortunately nerve damage or bleeding in the brain. These are serious and should not be taken lightly. A pregnancy chiropractor specializes in this pre-natal area and helps create a smooth delivery.

If you are thinking caesarean will reduce the risks, unfortunately this is not the case. A caesarean requires cutting through the abdominal muscles. Doing so, similar to natural birthing, it weakens the mother’s pelvic floor and causes back pain, incontinence, and prolapsed organs. Then, the baby is pulled out of a small cut in the abdomen with forceps, a vacuum, and/or tugging and twisting on their neck and shoulders, resulting in significant stress on the baby’s spine and nervous system.

Pregnancy Chiropractor – Post-Natal Chiropractic Care

It is not only during pregnancy that a mother should visit a pregnancy chiropractor. After birth, most will continue to experience aches and pains, in particular since relaxin, the hormone that has been stretching your ligaments will continue to stay in your system for up to six months after delivery. Incorporate the new stresses that arise from motherhood, with the sleepless nights, breastfeeding, holding the baby, and carrying the baby carrier, I cannot stress enough how important it is to maintain your body and the nervous system at optimal health. While you do have the routine visits with your OB after delivery, the OB does not specialize in this area of wellness as a pre and post-natal chiropractor does. Prenatal and postnatal chiropractic care not only focuses on making your body feel better, but they look after your overall wellness as a new mother. We help with pain, fatigue, post-natal weight loss, and more.

Pediatric Chiropractic Care

As described above, without prior pre-natal chiropractic care, a child is at risk of long and strenuous birth, affecting their spine, cranial molding, and nervous system. Since a newborn cannot speak, the only way they can show their discomfort and problems is through such actions as crying. The baby may cry excessively, be colic, latch poorly to the breast, have difficulty feeding, and unable to sleep, just to name a few. These are all symptoms of arduous pregnancies and births. These are signs that a child should be brought in to a chiropractic check-up. Again, while the child should have his or her regular pediatric check-ups, the pediatrician does not check for what a pediatric chiropractor looks for.

If you are pregnant or have a child, a pre-natal, post-natal, and/or pediatric chiropractic check-up is recommended. If you are in La Verne, CA or surrounding areas, contact my offices. Note, not all chiropractors specialize or are trained in this area of pregnancy and pediatric chiropractic care. I, Dr. Afshin Kaivan-Mehr with Foothill Family Chiropractic, am and available for a consultation to show you and your little one how to achieve optimal health.