>Pregnancy and Chiropractic
>What you need to know about Doula Services
>Children & Chiropractic

Pregnancy and Chiropractic

Chiropractic care during pregnancy is an essential choice in your prenatal care. During your pregnancy your body goes through hormonal changes. You will experience a shift in body weight and a laxity of connective tissues. Pre-existing unnoticed imbalances in your spine become stressed during pregnancy. New stresses are experienced by the lower back and pelvis. These pronounced discomforts make it difficult to perform routine, daily activities.

Pre- Conception
Chiropractic care prior to conception promotes a more regular menstrual cycle and optimal uterine function. It prepares the body to be strong, creating an environment for an easier, safer delivery. Restoring proper nerve supply to reproductive organs has helped many couples who believed was infertile. Chiropractic care throughout pregnancy can relieve and even prevent the common discomforts experienced in pregnancy. Specifics adjustments reduce spinal nerve stress allowing your uterus to function at its maximum potential

Labor and Birth
Mothers who get adjusted seem to require less high-tech intervention. Most women report shorter and less traumatic births. With proper nerve supply and well-timed contractions during labor your baby will pass easier through it’s birth canal. Many women report that their pregnancies were easier and their delivery times were shorter when they received chiropractic care. Chiropractic care is shown to reduce the need for pain medications and medical interventions.

Post Delivery
Even natural births can stress a baby’s spine. Breastfeeding problems can arise if the baby is unable to comfortably turn its head. Schedule a chiropractic checkup for your newborn as soon as possible. Doctors of Chiropractic work specifically with your pelvis throughout your pregnancy in order to restore a state of balance.

Benefits of Chiropractic Care during pregnancy:

1. Published studies have indicated that chiropractic care does in fact reduce labor time. Many women report that their pregnancies were easier and their delivery times shorter when they received chiropractic care.
2. Chiropractic care throughout pregnancy can relieve and even prevent the common discomforts experienced in pregnancy.
3. Specifics adjustments reduce spinal nerve stress allowing your uterus to function at its maximum potential.
4. Doctors of Chiropractic work specifically with your pelvis throughout pregnancy restoring a state of balance and creating an environment for an easier, safer delivery.
5. Chiropractic care is shown to reduce the need for pain medications and medical interventions.



What you need to know about Doula Services

What is a Doula?
A doulas role is to provide guidance to a woman in labor and take care of her physical and emotional support, before, during and after childbirth. They are an advocate and a listening ear for birth mothers, as well as facilitators to their partner.

A doula will meet with you prior to the onset of labor to review your wishes and desires for your birth. You will work together to develop a plan suited for your birth experience.

A doula will work with you at home in the early stages of labor to help you cope and to decide the right time to go to the hospital.

A doula will stay with you throughout your labor at the hospital and for a period after delivery to ensure successful breastfeeding and bonding.

How much does it cost?
Birth doula
The service: depending on the doula it is between $500 and $1,000.
Doulas normally work in a sliding scale.
Included:
* 2 prenatal visits of 2 hours
* Telephone calls and e-mails
* Labor and birth (for however long)
* 1 or 2 postnatal visits (usually 1 to 2 hours)
* and many more things
(Mileage needs to be added for any destination over 5 miles from the doula's house: $1.5/mile)
* * *
Doulas are on-call day and night for 2 weeks before your due date to 2 weeks after it this means you can call us at any time.
Postnatal doula
Between $10/h to $20/hour + Mileage ($1.5/mile) if you are further than 5 miles from the business.
Some of them are extremely flexible in the hours... daytime, evening and night... and even weekend. After all, this is about you getting the support when YOU need it!
Finding a doula fee
Infinite Body Health is NOT an agency however due to the ever increasing demand for doulas, if we are booked at the time of your baby’s conception/birth we are networking with other doulas and agencies that can provide you the services you need.
Booking
When to book? Anytime really.... but we work on a first come first serve basis and while we may be very busy one month we may have more availabilities the next. Our schedule is evolving every day... so you may call well in advance and ensure yourself of our availability or you may call last minute (for example when back from hospital after the baby's birth for some postnatal doula support) and find that we actually have some availability which may suit your needs. Unfortunately we can't be more precise... but when we commit to you, we will not let you down.
We limit the number of women/families we book at a time to ensure a quality and flexibility of service for everyone.

Why does Chiropractic care and Doula care work hand in hand?

Doulas and Chiropractors believe that “ pregnancy and birth need our respect-not intervention” therefore childbirth should be a natural approach to life and health.

What are the shared benefits of having a Doula and Doctor of Chiropractic?

How Can a Birth Doula Help Me?
Research has shown that with the help of a doula:

1. Shorter labors with fewer complications; First time labors are shortened by an average of 25%
2. Reduces negative feelings about one’s childbirth experiences
3. Reduces the need for pitocin (labor-inducing drug), forceps or vacuum extraction and cesareans. Chances of cesarean section are decreased by 50%
4. Reduces the mother’s request for pain medication and/or epidurals
5. Makes you feel more secure and cared for
6. Are more successful in adapting to new family dynamics
7. Have a greater success with breastfeeding
8. Have less postpartum depression
9. Fathers are able to participate with more confidence

Benefits of Chiropractic Care during pregnancy:

1. Published studies have indicated that chiropractic care does in fact reduce labor time. Many women report that their pregnancies were easier and their delivery times shorter when they received chiropractic care.
2. Chiropractic care throughout pregnancy can relieve and even prevent the common discomforts experienced in pregnancy.
3. Specifics adjustments reduce spinal nerve stress allowing your uterus to function at its maximum potential.
4. Doctors of Chiropractic work specifically with your pelvis throughout pregnancy restoring a state of balance and creating an environment for an easier, safer delivery.
5. Chiropractic care is shown to reduce the need for pain medications and medical interventions.

Why Choose Us?
We are skilled professionals who are highly trained and proficient in pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum. Our trained staff will provide analysis and adjustments for your special needs during and after your pregnancy.



Children & Chiropractic

Parents often ask if Chiropractic is beneficial for children. The answer is “Yes!” Whether addressing a specific health related problem or looking to increase the child’s overall health, Chiropractic plays a leading role when it comes to working with your child’s health.

While other health care providers treat only a child’s symptoms, your Chiropractor constantly strives to find the cause of the problem by assessing the nervous system, the body’s master control system. Because the nervous system maintains and controls all functions of the body, it makes sense to keep your child’s nervous system as healthy as possible to reach the maximum health potential.

Why Check a Child for Vertebral Subluxation?

Chiropractors look for Vertebral Subluxation. This means interference to the spinal cord and/or spinal nerve roots that travel between vertebrae in the spinal column. The birthing process may in fact be where many children receive their first Vertebral Subluxation, If you see an infant asleep in a car seat, look at the position of the child’s neck.
This postural distortion is just another sample of the way children acquire Vertebral Subluxation. We must also pay attention to the physical stresses children endure, such as falls, jolts, jars, tumbles and even accidents.

Along with chemical and emotional stresses, it is obvious that children are not immune to Vertebral Subluxation.

What happens when chiropractic care is left untreated for children?

Left uncorrected, many of the spinal traumas experienced by children become the more difficult-to-correct problems seen later in years.
Today’s birthing procedures can put tremendous pressures on a child’s spine. While the injury from forceps deliveries may be less common today, vacuum extraction and eager hands can do even more damage by pulling, forcing and twisting the baby’s young spine. Without the language to explain, many newborns experience colic, unexplained crying, lack of appetite, frequent ear infections or other signs of poor health.

A chiropractic examination is essential to determine if birth trauma to the spine is involved.

Regular chiropractic checkups are helpful to monitor spinal development as infants sit upright, support their heads, learn to crawl and take their first brave steps. Many experts believe that uncorrected spinal problems during this early stage of development cause the chronic, hard-to-correct subluxations seen in adults.

Is It Safe to Have a Child Adjusted?

Adjustments given to children are gentle and safe and different from those given to adults the far-reacting effects of a healthy nervous system are essential for proper development and continued health.

Regular Chiropractic Care Benefits All Ages!

Because Chiropractic seeks to establish a healthy nervous system, it makes sense that any person can benefit from regular chiropractic care, whether child or adult.
Chiropractic care ensures the best of health and well-being. Many chiropractic offices are filled with families receiving lifetime chiropractic care as a major part in their healthcare formula.

Will adjustments hurt my baby?

No, an infant’s spine rarely has the long-standing muscle tightness seen in adults. So the energy needed to adjust a child’s spine is considerably less than what’s needed to adjust you. Adjusting techniques are modified for each person’s size and unique spinal problem.

Chiropractic and Breastfeeding

We’re a vocal supporter of breast-feeding. This convenient form of nutrition perfectly matches your child’s nutritional needs and is proven to bolster your child’s immune system function.

Will my pediatrician approve of chiropractic care for my child?

First, you don’t need anyone’s approval to seek a chiropractic opinion about health issues affecting your child. Medical practitioners keeping up with the latest pediatric chiropractic research are starting to understand the value of this natural, drug-free approach to better health.

Haldeman S, Wilberg J, Klougart N. Issues Specific in Pediatrics Practice. Principles and practice of Chiropractic, 3rd Ed. 2005; 1049-78

Jones JE, Kassity N. Varieties of alternative experience: complementary care in the neonatal intensive unit. Clin Obstet Gynecol. 2001 Dec; 44(4): 750-68.