Babies & Toddlers
Give your child a happy start with a healthy nervous system.
Being a baby is wild! Countless changes occur in your baby’s body during the first few years of life. These changes are all initiated and monitored by your baby’s brain and nervous system. Since children need a healthy nervous system to grow up and thrive, it is important for them to be checked by a pediatric chiropractor early in life.
Dr. Lauren Brettingen is a certified pediatric and prenatal chiropractor who knows how to assess if your child’s nervous system is functioning the best it can. Through gentle and specific pediatric adjustments, your baby’s brain and body will get reconnected and allow the healing and prevention process to begin.
Babies and toddlers who have balanced nerve systems experience:
Easier bowel movements
Less ear infections
Improved latching & nursing outcomes
Less colic & tantrums
More calm days
Less effects from tongue and lip ties
Better sleep
Easier connection with loved ones
Reaching milestones on time
Plagiocephaly corrections
Boosted immunity & resiliency
Common Conditions We See
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Ear infections historically have been a really common reason that parens have brought their children to the chiropractor. That is because it works really well!
Ear infections are a drainage problem. Often a combo of teething and the never ending sniffles kids get as they grow their immune system creates a lot of excess mucus and fluid in the body. If our drainage system is clogged in the top of the head and neck, that fluid has to go somewhere. So often it backs up into the eustachian tubes.
Kids naturally and by design have flatter and narrower eustachian tubes. However, they also have a muscular pump whose one job is to get the fluid out of the ears. When we have misalignment in the top of the spine, this muscle gets really tight and cant do it’s job. Thus leaving this fluid in a dark, cozy, warm space that is perfect for bacteria to grow! QUEUE THE CHRONIC EAR INFECTIONS.
Chiropractic helps to restore the connection in the top of the spine, allowing the muscular pump to do its job and letting the ears naturally drain!
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We work inside and outside the mouth on stretching tight muscles and use myofascial techniques to release adhesions that restrict jaw, tongue, and lip movement. We assess and treat for uneven neck movement and restrictions in the neck joints with safe, effective chiropractic adjustments. These adjustments are tailored toward infants and the techniques vary by age
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A little spit up here and there is normal for babies as their body learns how to keep food down! However, when parents start to see large volumes of spit up, choking, uncomfortable babies (back arching, constipation, etc.) and frequent spit ups that is a sign to call your chiropractor.
With infantile reflux, the nerves to our esophageal sphincter, the stomach, and the tongue are stressed causing them to become spastic or not function correctly. Either the Esophageal valve is opening and closing at the wrong time and spit up escapes into the throat that needs to come out… que spit up! Or maybe the stomach can’t digest the milk properly and the nutrients cant move through the system properly. Lastly, we may need to look at your infant’s mouth. It’s possible that he or she is taking in a lot of air when feeding that is causing the spit up.
This is one of the most common reasons parents bring their babie to Be Well! We focus on the pediatric population specifically!
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Does your baby have a hard time settling down, falling asleep or staying asleep? While it’s normal for babies to wake up one or two times a night when they are little, prioritizing good sleep is essential as baby grows.
When the nervous system is in a state stress, often we see sleep be disrupted first. Often the Vagus Nerve is the major key player here! Chiropractic care helps reconnect the nervous system and put your baby in full rest mode! Which means you’ll start to see more restful nights for your little one (and you, too!).
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Even though the majority of patients try to address chronic constipation through nutrition and supplements, the root causes often come from stress on the nervous system. In chiropractic care, this stress is called subluxation, which means stress stuck on. The sympathetic fight or flight side of the nervous system is what we call the gas pedal. When it gets stuck on, it can cause various issues, including constipation, ADHD, anxiety, and sensory issues. In fact, many patients who struggle with these issues later in life also had constipation when they were children.
When the nervous system is stressed out, it steals energy from the gut. This can cause digestive motility to slow down, leading to what we call neurogenic constipation. Four out of five cases of constipation that we see in our clinic are neurogenic, which means they are caused by stress on the nervous system. We can usually determine this by looking back at the child’s case history, seeing if the family has tried everything else, and measuring the stress, or subluxation, on the nervous system using our INSiGHT scans.
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If a family has already done all they can to support the child’s gut nutritionally, it almost certainly leaves what we refer to as neurogenic colic as the real root cause of the discomfort. This means that the tension and subluxation originate from within the nervous system first.
The resulting neurological dysfunction creates a “neuro-storm” of signals that disrupt sleep, digestive function, and so much more. A colicky baby’s system then constantly cries, moves, twists, and torques to try and find calm and regulation amidst that storm of stress and tension.
Learning more about nervous system regulation is something that helps families find vastly improved health and well-being, even for their littlest ones, like an infant struggling with colic.
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If you notice your nipple looks like lipstick after nursing, nursing is painful, your baby has a weak or won’t latch, it’s time to take a look at their nervous system.
When we notice see infants with nursing difficulties we often notice stress stuck on in the nervous system. This disrupts baby’s ability to coordinate his or her tongue to create a strong latch. Another root cause we see with nursing difficulties is that baby has a preference on which side he or she turns her head, making it uncomfortable to latch. This is when you might see a side preference or your infant constantly having to latch and relatch.
Don’t Take Our Word For It…