Here are good rules of thumb to follow when buying and packing a child’s backpack.

1. Selection. Choosing the right size backpack is the most important step to safe backpack use. Choose the right size for your child, and make sure straps can be adjusted to fit your child.

2. Pack Right. The maximum weight of the loaded backpack should not exceed 15 % of the child’s body weight. Teach your child the importance of packing a backpack, what they should carry in it, and what they can leave at home or at school.  Tip: If the backpack forces the wearer to move forward to carry, it’s overloaded.

3. Lift Right. Face the pack, bend at the knees and use both hands to check the weight of the pack.  Lift with the legs.  Apply one shoulder strap and then the other.  Tip: Don’t sling the backpack onto one shoulder. Distribute the weight evenly across your back.

4. Wear it Right. Use both shoulder straps – snug, but not too tight.  Tip: When the backpack has a waist strap – use it.

Backpacks are a popular and practical way for children and teenagers to carry school books and supplies.  When used correctly, backpacks can be a good way to carry the necessities of the school day. Be sure your child’s school allows students to stop at their lockers throughout the day.

Backpacks are designed to distribute the weight of the load among some of the body’s strongest muscles. However, backpacks that are too heavy or are worn incorrectly can cause problems. Improperly used backpacks may injure muscles and joints. This can lead to severe back, neck, and shoulder pain, as well as long term posture problems. Share these guidelines to help your kids select backpacks and use them safely.

Do not ignore any back pain in a child or teenager. It’s never too young to begin seeing a chiropractor. A chiropractor can adjust a child and keep them on track for avoiding back pain later in life. .

Furthermore, did you know that doctors may prescribe drugs to children even if the medications have not been shown to be beneficial or safe for children?  There is an increasing trend among physicians and psychologists to do just that since nearly all pharmaceutical company research on antidepressant drugs has been limited to adults.  Only Prozac has been tested on children and found to have benefits by Eli Lilly.  However, the side effects may be detrimental to a child’s healthy growth and development and include suicidal feelings, anxiety, insomnia, weight loss and headaches.

Many are now questioning the practice of prescribing antidepressant drugs to children.  In October 2003, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a health advisory alerting physicians to a possible link between antidepressant drugs and suicidal feelings in the young.  An article from the British Medical Journal contained a clinical review that found “significant shortcomings” in using antidepressants such as Effexor, Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft in those under 18 years old.  These researchers concluded that, “Antidepressant drugs cannot confidently be recommended as a treatment option for childhood depression,” and that due to biased reporting by drug manufacturers, “many [doctors, patients and families] will undervalue non-drug treatments that are probably both safer and more effective.”

Chiropractic care is one such non-drug option.  While chiropractic care does not specifically target depression, it has been shown to reduce pain throughout the entire body.  This may in turn lead to a reduction in depression since studies in the scientific journal Spine and the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology linked spinal back pain to an increased likelihood of depression.

Chiropractors correct vertebral subluxation which creates pressure in the nerve system and can be one of the most common causes of back pain and many other health problems.  Yet subluxations can be present and alter nerve function and body chemistry for years, prior to causing any physical pain or depression.  This pressure can cause mixed signals in the nerve system and affects children as well as adults.  Thus many people diagnosed as depressive who do not have back pain symptoms may suffer anyway from vertebral subluxations that could be contributing to their feelings of depression.

Counseling, tutoring, changing teachers or schools, creating harmony in the home, good nutrition and chiropractic care are just a few of the holistic solutions patients can explore before resorting to antidepressant drugs that may actually increase their likelihood of attempting suicide.

Source: Dr. Eric Plasker, Marietta, GA

If you’ve ever experienced one with your own child, you know just how scary they can be. Asthma is a disorder in which the airway becomes inflamed, resulting in wheezing, loss of breath, and a tightness in the chest. During an asthma attack, the airway becomes constricted, and breathing becomes difficult and labored.

While no one knows for sure what causes asthma, we do know that asthma attacks can be triggered by exposure to certain conditions. Children will exhibit severe coughing and wheezing, and begin feeling a tightness in the chest and a shortness of breath. Triggers can include many things, including:

• Cigarette smoke
• Cleaning products
• Pesticides
• Molds
• Dust
• Pollens
• Strong emotions
• Stress
• Infections of the respiratory system

While the prevalence of asthma has been increasing every year in this country, it’s increasing at an especially alarming rate in children over the past 10 years. With more asthma drugs and allergy shots on the market, why is this happening? Study after study proves there are no significant benefits with shots given to children for moderate to sever asthma.  Ultimately its because medication isn’t addressing the true problem.

Chiropractic care focuses on the well being of the entire person. If a misalignment is corrected and managed properly, a child can often return to normal childhood behavior, without having to rely on medication that is ineffective and simply doesn’t work.

Ready to explore a natural treatment for your child suffering with asthma? Give us a call today. We specialize in children and family chiropractic care, and welcome the chance to get you back on track to good health.

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Is it safe to adjust a child?
Chiropractic is absolutely safe for children. A chiropractor uses very gentle and specific techniques for children. The purpose of chiropractic is to remove interference to the nervous system, which is the control center for all of the body’s organs, tissues and systems. Chiropractic adjustments release the body’s healing powers in children just like in adults.

Why do infants need chiropractic?
The birth process is highly traumatic and can introduce great stress to the infant’s skull, spine and pelvis. Infants should be checked by a chiropractor for spinal subluxations that may impair nerve function and can contribute to colic, earache and asthma. As babies grow, they begin to crawl, sit, and walk by using their spine. Proper alignment is essential for ensuring normal function.

Why do children need chiropractic?
Children are highly susceptible to trauma in their spines. Since spines grow rapidly during the first five years of life, checking for abnormalities during this time is critical for proper development. Though symptoms may not surface until years later, injury to vital nerves can result in a lifetime of serious health problems.

Chiropractic is especially necessary for young athletes in contact sports or informal recreation. However, parents bring their children to chiropractors for everyday health concerns such as asthma, common infections, bed-wetting, falls, ADD, and colds. Chiropractic care allows children to have better nerve function, which affects all of the body’s other systems, and develop to their highest potential.

Parents Use Chiropractors for their Healthcare Team
Today’s parents make sure they are well-informed when making healthcare choices for their children.  With the rising concern about the side effects of drugs on their children, parents are hesitant to jump to medications to merely mask symptoms. They seek out natural healthcare solutions which support their children’s natural ability to be healthy.  Chiropractic is a critical part of your family’s wellness lifestyle.

Source: Dr. Cheryl Langley, Marietta, GA

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Do you remember the phrase “Garbage in, garbage out”?  When you consider that we are what we eat, that phrase becomes very important when raising healthy children.  Our children need nourishing food.  When our children receive proper nutrition, they will be able to perform better in school.  A healthy breakfast, snack and lunch will help them concentrate, focus and learn the way they are designed.  Fast food restaurants are designed to provide food fast, not necessarily nutritious.  Fast foods are typically high in fat and cholesterol, including trans-fats.  Our bodies do not have the ability to break down those types of fats.

Eliminating as many toxins from your household environment is another factor in raising a healthy family.  Cigarette smoke, or smoke of any kind, is an extremely toxic substance that kills millions of people every year.  Other airborne toxins include dust, dirt and dander.  These irritants in a child’s environment can cause respiratory irritation, infection, damage and disease.  Children need clean, fresh air in order to get the oxygen that the body requires.

One way to help ensure that children grow up healthy is to make sure they have a properly functioning nervous system.  This system is the master control system and the communication system within the body.  In order for you to be healthy, this system must function without interference.  Interference can present in the way of spinal misalignments, or subluxations.  Your chiropractor can determine if there are subluxations present in your child’s spine.  Subluxations cause interference to your child’s nervous system.  Removing subluxations will allow your child to grow up healthy and functioning at their highest potential.

Source: Dr. Tina Theriot, New Iberia, LA

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For the past several years, medical doctors have been repeatedly warned about the dangers of over-prescribing antibiotics. They’ve been told, in medical journals and consumer health magazines, that antibiotics are not effective for colds, upper respiratory infections (URIs), bronchitis or other similar health problems.

That’s not all. They can weaken a person’s natural immune system and their overuse has already lead to the creation of “superbacteria” which is resistant to antibiotic therapy.

Yet, a new report revealed that 44% of children seen by physicians for treatment of common colds still leave doctors’ offices with unnecessary prescriptions for antibiotics!

In addition, 46% of pediatric patients with URIs and 75% of pediatric patients with bronchitis receive antibiotics for their conditions.

Dr. Ann-Christine Nyquist of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver and a multicenter team reported their findings in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

They concluded, “Antibiotic prescribing for children diagnosed as having colds, URIs, and bronchitis, conditions that typically do not benefit from antibiotics, represents a substantial proportion of total antibiotic prescriptions to children in the United States each year.”

Among these kids, it’s the youngest who are being pumped with the most drugs. The report noted that children up to four years accounted for 58% of the antibiotic prescriptions.

Instead of “fixing” your kids with pills that don’t work, invest in a health and wellness program instead. Chiropractic care for children can be started immediately after birth, and can help your child stay well for life.

SOURCE: “Table of Antibiotic Prescribing for Children With Colds, Upper Contents Respiratory Tract Infections, and Bronchitis,” Ann-Christine Nyquist, M.D., MSPH; Ralph Gonzales, M.D., MSPH; John F. Steiner, M.D., MPH; Merle A. Sande, M.D., The Journal of the American Medical Association, March 18, 1998.

Thomas Edison’s teachers said he was too stupid to learn anything. Isaac Newton did very poorly in grade school. Opera singer Enrico Caruso’s teacher said he had no voice at all and could not sing. Winston Churchill failed sixth grade. Beethoven handled the violin awkwardly and preferred playing his own compositions. His teacher called him hopeless as a composer. Are these geniuses Ritalin candidates also?

What are we doing to our children? How did we allow our country to be jokingly referred to as the Ritalin capital of the world?

Ritalin is a very dangerous and highly addictive drug. Under Federal Law, Ritalin is classified as a schedule II controlled substance, the same rating given to cocaine, opium and morphine. Withdrawal symptoms can be severe and include depression, fatigue, paranoia, increased dreaming, irritability, bedwetting and suicide.

At a program on The Ritalin Controversy, one of the mothers stood up and told her son’s story. He tried Ritalin for a very short time and he hated the way it made him feel, so he stopped taking it on his own (hurray for him).  

What’s scary is that seven years later he still suffers from the side effects, including bedwetting.

Can you really try it just once? Think long and hard about the answer to this question.

The side effects of Ritalin are numerous and severe. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Of Mental Disorders, the side effects include stunting of growth, depression, insomnia, nervousness, skin rash, anorexia, nausea, dizziness, headaches, abdominal pain, blood pressure and pulse changes, and Tourette’s Syndrome (a permanent and irreversible condition characterized by body tics, spasms, screaming obscenities, and barking sounds).

The physiological changes that cause these side effects are occurring whether there is an outward manifestation of symptoms or not. This is very scary.

How far will we go to control, mold, and conform our children to somebody’s made up normal? Are we turning our geniuses of tomorrow into drug addicts?

According to a Canadian report, Ritalin is responsible for more street crime than any other drug. Kids are selling their Ritalin to other kids. A USA Today report indicated that some kids crush Ritalin into a powder and snort it like cocaine, while others cook it and inject it into their bloodstream.

“My child wouldn’t do that,” you might say. How do you know? This is a highly addictive drug we are talking about here. Remember the fifteen year old who is still suffering from withdrawal seven years later. He no longer owns his life and his consciousness. He now has a lifelong battle for his will.

Well known criminal defense attorney Melvin Nash, from Marietta, Georgia, who receives regular Chiropractic Care with his family, indicated that approximately 60% of the people he defends for everything from DUI to armed robbery have been on Ritalin at some point in their life. He stated, “I would home school my kids before I put them on Ritalin!” That’s a powerful statement!

The United States is number one in Ritalin consumption in the world, by far. How did we let this happen? Have we bought into the multimillion dollar marketing strategies of the drug manufacturer? You decide.

One person who just started teaching in a middle school was asked if a lot of her kids were on Ritalin. She replied, “yes, but not enough.” This gives me a pain in my heart.

Another person was discussing her friends who became parents late in life. They said they couldn’t deal with their son because they had forgotten what it was like to be a child. Their child is on Ritalin. I cry for him.

It has always puzzled me why in some schools up to 50% of the kids are on Ritalin and in others schools very close by, only 5% are on the drug. This variation can be seen from class to class as well. How do we let this happen?

Where is the responsibility going that we entrust our child’s mind to a highly addictive and dangerous drug such as Ritalin? What price are we willing to pay to maintain our high tech lifestyles and busy schedules or to have our kids be “perfect”? What if Albert Einstein had been on Ritalin?

There is a genius in all of us that is just trying to get out. Think about all the ideas, talent, strength and creativity we keep stored inside because we worry about what other people would say or think. They would put us down, call us unruly and tell us to grow up. They would put us on Ritalin to get us to conform to the norm that is mediocrity and maintain our drug dependent world.

As a Chiropractor, I get to experience this genius every day in my office. I see the healing and regenerative powers of the human body and spirit at work every day. People that were on drugs get off them. Children that are so-called hyper calm down and parents that are hypoactive get increased energy. I have seen people’s own bodies begin to work correctly because of chiropractic and heal itself from just about every malady you can name.

I have also seen what the continuous expression of this genius can create in families that are under Chiropractic Care. Wellness care keeps the expression of this genius un-interferred with so people can express all of their genetic potential on a moment to moment basis, every minute they’re alive.

All children, especially the ones that aren’t “perfect” or “normal” need their senses clear. They need their adaptation capacity at 100%. They need their nerve system free from interference. Do they really need artificial stimulation or sedation?

Could you imagine if Helen Keller had been on Ritalin? Would it have given her the best opportunity to thrive in the world and express her innate potential? I doubt it. We would have been robbed of a wonderful gift.

Is Ritalin the drug industry’s version of a Joe Camel cigarette billboard? Is Ritalin the drug company’s insurance policy to big business down the road? Is it any wonder our country can spend close to $80 million a year on drug abuse awareness and the problem continues to get worse?

Please parents, open up and take these insights to heart. I know that all parents make the best decisions they are capable of for their children, given the knowledge they had at the time of their decision.

You now have more knowledge. Let’s take a stand for our next generation.

Dr. Jason Watts graduated from Palmer College of Chiropractic with honors.  He is dedicated to serving families with the best chiropractic has to offer.

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But a study supported by the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research indicated that use of these antibiotics may not be a good idea.

The study showed that children with recurrent middle ear infections — that is, three infections within six months or four in a year — and given antibiotics fare about the same as children given a placebo, with 61- 64% remaining free of new infections during the study period.

Also, researchers say that the excessive antibiotic use, which has the potential to promote acquisition of antibiotic-resistant bacterial pneumonia, already is becoming more prevalent.

Instead of attempting to “fix” the problem with a pill, invest in your child’s overall well-being. Studies show that providing chiropractic care for your child from an early age can help in reducing ear infections, and increasing overall health.

SOURCES:
“Continuous twice daily or once daily amoxicillin prophylaxis compared with placebo for children with recurrent acute otitis media,” Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal 16.

“Amoxicillin is Often Prescribed to Prevent Middle Ear Infections in Young Children, But it is Only Marginally Effective,” Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, Sept. 29, 1997.

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Traumatic Birth Syndrome is not a new condition. A researcher by the name of Duncan measured the amount of force it would take to severely injure a baby’s neck during delivery. He found that 90 pounds of force was enough to cause stillbirth, while less than that would cause the spinal joints to sprain. Duncan commented, “This is not what most obstetricians would consider a great force.”

Traumatic Birth Syndrome can cause a variety of symptoms including:

• Respiratory failure
• Cerebral palsy
• Colic
• Asthma
• Reoccurring ear infections
• Chronic colds and flu
• Sleeping difficulty
• Headaches
• Neck and back pain
• And many more

Traumatic Birth Syndrome doesn’t always occur immediately after birth. Sometime it can take months or years to surface.

For example, a 5-year-old child whose birth was a very traumatic C-section, never had a properly functioning bladder. Her father, who was an eyewitness to the traumatic birth, described how his baby’s lower spine was twisted during the delivery. After just a month of Chiropractic care the parents were amazed that their child’s problem was gone. Their family is now committed to chiropractic care as a way to maximize their health potential.

Another chiropractic patient, who began care for a herniated disc in his neck, indicated that when he was 22 years old he had his gall bladder removed. He didn’t understand why his gall bladder had failed at such a young age. The doctors didn’t know either. When he saw his x-rays for the first time he noticed a huge kink in the bones between his shoulders. His mouth dropped wide open when he learned that this was the area of his spine where the nerves supplied his gall bladder. Upon further investigation, he learned his birth was a forceps delivery. He wished someone had told his mother about Chiropractic.

My chiropractic colleagues around the world all agree that we would much rather examine and adjust every newborn baby on the planet than do one autopsy. We would much rather adjust babies than wait 26 years and learn about young people having cancer or gall bladder disease in areas where their nerve systems had been injured and compromised since birth.

The human body was designed to function as a well-oiled machine until the ripe old age of at least 100. There are people who are living to be 100 years old in various parts of the world and they are functioning absolutely fine.

Traumatic Birth Syndrome, whether it causes symptoms immediately or just diminishes human potential over the course of a lifetime, must be dealt with immediately.

Don’t be fooled if your medical doctor says your baby is fine. Medical doctors get little to no training in the detection and correction of the vertebral subluxation complex caused by Traumatic Birth Syndrome and will almost certainly miss it.

Chiropractors, on the other hand, have been-detecting and correcting Traumatic Birth Syndrome and the vertebral subluxation complex for over 100 years through simple, gentle procedures called adjustments.

All children should be examined by a Chiropractor immediately after birth. Take this critical step to ensure that your children grow up as healthy as they are designed to be.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics,

• Almost half of all children will have at least one middle ear infection before they’re 1-year old.
• Two-thirds of those will have had at least one such infection by age 3.
• Almost half of those will have had repeated bouts.

Statistics also show that more traditional ways of treating ear infections simply don’t work.

• Antibiotic treatment of otitis media is no more effective than placebo, and increases the risks of reoccurrence. [Source: Cantekin EI. Antibiotics to prevent acute otitis media and to treat otitis media with effusion. JAMA 1994; 272(3):203-4 / Medline ID: 94293436]

However, correcting the cause through chiropractic has been shown to help over 80% of all children with ear infections.

• 93% of all episodes of otitis media treated with chiropractic care improved, 75% in 10 days or fewer.

This study’s data indicates that limitation of medical intervention and the addition of chiropractic care may decrease the symptoms of ear infection in young children. [Source: Froehle RM; Ear infection: a retrospective study examining improvement from chiropractic care and analyzing for influencing factors. J Manipulative Physiol Ther 1996; 19(3):169-77 / Medline ID: 96294956]

Does your child have reoccurring ear infections? Instead of visiting the pediatrician, check in with your chiropractor. Your child may be ear infection-free this coming season.

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