Children and Chiropractic Care: Birth to 18 Years Conditions cared for and side effects

By

Mark Studin DC, FASBE (C), DAAPM, DAAMLP


 
Chiropractic has been successfully caring for children for various conditions for over a century. The main issues are what conditions are cared for by chiropractors, what is the reported success rate and what is the incidence of side effects. Over time, research has started to catch up on what individual chiropractors have been realizing in their private practices and this article will outline the current state of the literature.
Marchand (2012) reported that an extensive European study was performed revealing that 8.1% of chiropractic practices were children between the ages of 0-18 (this is lower than the 17.1% of pediatric case loads of American Chiropractors.) This was based upon 921 doctors of chiropractic participating and reporting 19,821 pediatric visits, thereby certifying a valid cross-section of patients to conclude results.
The pediatric related conditions that were reported to be cared for by chiropractors were the following:

Musculoskeletal
Joint pain
Walking/crawling
Neck pain
Mid back pain
Low back pain
Neurological
Headaches
Autism
Balance
Cerebral Palsy
Movement Disorders
ADD/ADHD
Behavioral
Crying/Irritability/Sleep
Developmental
Growing
Cognitive
Gastrointestinal
Colic
Constipation
Digestive
Eating
Drinking
Reflux
Hiatus hernia
Bowel problems
Genitourinary
Menstrual cramps
Bed wetting
Immune
Allergies
Asthma
Food intolerance
Respiratory
Eczema
Skin rashes
Infections
Ear infections
Ear-nose-throat problems
Common cold
Flu

     Miller and Benfield (2008) conducted a study of children younger than 3 years old to determine the adverse effects of chiropractic care in that age group, arguably the most susceptible to injury based upon the fragility of that age group. The study was based upon 5,242 chiropractic adjustments and if the results were extrapolated to the wider infant/toddler population that receives chiropractic treatment, the adverse reaction rate is expected to be 1 out of every 1300 chiropractic adjustments. There was less than 1% of patients experiencing negative side effects and all of these adverse reactions to care were mild in nature; transient and required no medical care with serious complications. The typical reaction was transient crying.

The “Practical Application” reported by Miller and Benfield was that chiropractic adjustments were safe for young children and adolescents.
     Marchand (2012) also reported the negative side effects of chiropractic care in children to be less then 1% (0.23%,) which is consistent with what Miller and Benfield reported 4 years prior in an independent study. However, Marchand went further to categorize the negative side effects into mild, moderate and severe. In a 1 year study of 237,857 pediatric patients, there was a reported 534 mild side effects (0.2%) and 23 (0.009%) had moderate side effects with 0 (zero) reporting any severe side effects.
   To render perspective on the safety of chiropractic care and children Le, Nguyen, Law and Hodding (2006) reported  "The incidence of adverse drug reactions among hospitalized children in the United States has not been well studied. Because clinical trials involving neonates, infants, children, and adolescents are limited, the safety and tolerability of many pharmacologic agents are not well established. Often the pharmacologic actions of drugs in neonates, infants, and children are not similar to those identified for adults; therefore, information obtained from research with adults cannot be applied directly. On the basis of a meta-analysis of 17 prospective studies conducted in the United States and Europe, the incidence of adverse drug reactions among hospitalized children was 9.5%, with severe reactions accounting for 12% of the total (pg. 557.)
    The above study indicates that side effects need more researched  in many sects of health care, but comparatively speaking, chiropractic is a much safer choice than most alternative options.
Over time, research will continue to render more outcome statistics on the efficacy of chiropractic care. However based upon the current statistical conclusions, chiropractic is being utilized to help an array of maladies worldwide in the pediatric population with minimal to no side effects.

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