Is your baby colicky? Does your baby cry constantly? Do you feel like you just can’t console them and don’t have the answers? Maybe you are a new parent and are struggling through the depths of parenthood and just don’t know what to do. Maybe this isn’t your first child but you have just never had a baby cry like this before.
We may have an answer for you—an answer you would have never thought of, perhaps something seemingly inconceivable.
First off: was your baby’s birth traumatic? Now I’m not only talking about cesarean sections (yes, moms, this is one of the MOST traumatic ways for your babies to be born). One in three births in the US are now by C-section. This number is appalling! Neither the American Pregnancy Association nor the World Health Organization condone the increased use of this surgical procedure. A worldwide push has been started to bring women back to natural birthing procedures.
The recovery time for both mother and child are extended with a C-section. The surgery interrupts the critical release of hormones that help stimulate the newborn to start nursing and that also begin the bonding period between mother and child, greatly increasing the chances of post-partum depression. Not only that, but if the baby is not pushed through the vaginal canal, one of the most critical pumps in your body does not get its vital first big push—and no, I’m not talking about the heart. It’s the cranio-sacral rhythm, which causes the cerebral-spinal fluid to bathe our nervous systems in nutrition and oxygen and helps remove wastes. The baby does not get its first dose of probiotics, nor do its lungs get squished to help remove all the extra mucus and fluid built up in it while it’s in utero. Our bodies as women were made to birth, that is what our bodies innately want to do. It’s our birth right.
And even if your birth is vaginal, it’s not completely natural if you use induction procedures, epidurals and episiotomies. All of these things can lead to a traumatic birth for mother and child. If they pull the baby out, they can put up to 40 lbs of pressure on a newborn baby’s fragile head and neck—remember they don’t even have the muscle tone to hold up that big noggin of theirs!
All of this can lead to trauma of the baby’s spine and nervous system, the most vital organ system in our bodies. The nervous system is the master control system. It runs and controls every single other system in our bodies. Trauma can lead to a multitude of problems within the body.
Now, there is no definite explanation for what causes colic. Sometimes it is gas, and most of the time it is completely unexplained by the medical system. But colic usually means that the child is extremely sensitive to a stimulus or it is not able to regulate its nervous system.
Sensitivity to a stimulus means the nervous system is hyperactive (also known as allergies), or hyper-responsive immune system (which also can be caused by nervous system dysfunction via the hypothalamic-pituitary-endocrine control). Inability to regulate the nervous system can be caused by interference in this communication highway—something we chiropractors come across on a daily basis, and correct on a daily basis. This interference can be caused by a vertebral subluxation, a misalignment in the spine, which causes interference in the nervous system.
So if your baby is colicky, or they are just crying constantly and you are at your wits’ end, maybe it’s time to try a new route, a new way of thinking. A health system that believes that the body is all-knowing, that trusts in your bodies’ own innate ability to heal. Chiropractic care may be the choice for you!