Have you ever wondered what the best gift for your child would be? Is it the most expensive toy you can ever buy? Or setting aside money for his/her future overseas education? Everybody may have his or her own ideal gift in mind but to me, the best gift is a healthy nervous system.
A person’s nervous system holds the key to one’s health. The nervous system comprises the brain and the spinal cord. The spinal cord plays a very important role by providing the communication link between our brain and our body. Every organ, muscle and ligaments in our body receives instructions from our brain through our spinal cord that branch out as nerves to function. It is very important for our body to receive crystal clear instructions from the brain in order to function at its best. Take for an example, for a child to have a strong immune system, his/her brain must be able to communicate and command with the immune system efficiently. The brain activates the immune system when the need arises and the immune system works at its best when instructions sent by the brain are loud and clear. On the contrary, when instructions sent are unclear and distorted, like in a situation where your handphone signal is weak or lost, messages do not get across in full or as quickly as they should. The capability of the immune system then becomes underutilized and your child can fall sick easily.
Our spine works like a hard casing formed by 24 individual rectangular blocks (with a disc in between each block) that protects the spinal cord. Each block contains an outlet for nerve fibers that travel to certain organs, muscles and ligaments in our body. Our spinal cord works like an information superhighway between the brain and our body. When this casing is lined up properly, the communication highway functions at its best and information travels from the brain to its destination without any loss. Any event that causes the blocks to be out of alignment can put stress on the nerves and this in turn can cause signals travelling along this communication highway to be interfered and sometime even lost. When this happens, the function of the body loses its efficiency and the body is unable to enjoy optimal health. This applies to both children and adults. Examples of such events that can occur on our children include the birth process, falls they have had especially while they were learning to walk and carrying heavy school bags on their backs.
The birth process can be a rather traumatic event for both the mother and the child. Unknown to most people, a baby’s spine can be subject to stress during the birth process. The spine of a baby, particularly the neck area, can end up being twisted and stretched when he/she enters this world. Afterall, what most parents see after labor or C-section is a beautiful baby wrapped in receiving blanket. It is not surprising that most parents do not know that their babies could have gone through a tough time coming out of the birth canal and their spines could have become misaligned during this process.
In 1990, Dr Gutmann[1], MD, conducted 2 studies on infants and small children. In the first study that he conducted on 100 children, 88 of them were found to have misalignment in the first bone of their neck, i.e. C1. In another study that he conducted on 75 children, all 75 children were found to have misaligned C1. These misalignments subject the nervous system to stress and it is not uncommon for them to go undetected until much later in life. Unless you and your family have seen a chiropractor, there is a high chance that each and everyone of you may be walking around with a misaligned spine.
The stress on the spinal cord, and hence the nervous system, that arises from the birth process can affect one’s health tremendously. As the infants grow, they usually fall countless times and when they reach the school going age, they carry heavy school bags on their back. All these events put further stresses on their spine. If these stresses are not removed, they may present challenges to your child’s ability to grow and develop in the healthiest manner possible.
As the Chinese saying goes, health is wealth, we should give our children the best health and one of the ways that this can be done is through a healthy nervous system which can be achieved through chiropractic care.
[1] Gutmann, ICA International Review Chiropractic, p37-43, 1990 (Originally published in Manuelle Medzin 1953)
