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ON TIKTOK, CHIROPRACTORS AIM TO SOOTHE FUSSY BABIES WITH UNPROVEN CARE


PRACTITIONERS AND PARENTS SAY CHIROPRACTIC TREATMENT HELPS COLIC AND
CONSTIPATION, BUT PEDIATRICIANS SAY THE “ADJUSTMENTS” AREN’T BACKED BY SCIENCE

By Teddy Amenabar
September 15, 2022 at 6:11 a.m. EDT

(Carmen Chan for The Washington Post)
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On TikTok, chiropractors are stretching chubby legs, massaging infant tailbones
and tracing the tiny vertebrae of baby spines, touting a range of unproven
treatments for newborns, babies and toddlers.

Dustin Judd runs a family chiropractic clinic in Corsicana, Tex., that regularly
posts videos on the app that get a few thousand views each. But in July, a video
showed Judd holding a 6-day-old baby, who rested in his hand as he massaged the
infant’s back with a vibrating handheld device. It went viral.



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The baby “got his 1st adjustment and LOVED IT,” reads the caption. The video has
been viewed more than 1.2 million times. (Judd later told The Washington Post he
used the device, called a vibracussor, to soothe the colicky baby.)

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> 

Viewers flooded the comments with support and skepticism about chiropractic care
for infants.

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“It’s very dogmatic,” Judd said. “You get all kinds of hate from one way or
another. But, I’m on a mission. I’ve seen what it does.”

More than five-dozen videos of infant and toddler chiropractic care have been
posted in the past year by TikTok accounts advertising clinics across the
country. Some of the videos have amassed thousands of views. A few, like Judd’s,
have been viewed more than a million times. The videos often include hashtags
such as “babyadjustment” and “backpop.”

The evidence that chiropractic care can soothe babies is scant. But clinicians
on TikTok claim chiropractic care can offer relief to fussy babies suffering
from a variety of ailments, including colic, constipation, reflux,
musculoskeletal problems and even, some say, trauma babies experience in
childbirth.

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In Huntington Beach, Calif., videos show clinicians at Momma’s Chiro guiding
babies through bicycle kicks to help them with constipation. In Dalton, Ga.,
chiropractor Danny DeReuter uses his fingers to press on an infant’s cervical
spine as a treatment for reflux. In Weatherford, Tex., chiropractor Jason
Roberts moves his hands up and down a wailing baby’s spine before holding him
upside down. (The child apparently hasn’t pooped in a while.)

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Chiropractors say treatments for infants and toddlers are safe and gentle — far
from the explosive cracks and contortions generally associated with adult
chiropractic care.

Some physicians say the proliferation of infant chiropractic care on social
media is concerning because the treatments, particularly in the wrong hands,
could be risky. Those physicians say one worry is that a baby’s bones are
softer, making them more malleable under pressure, and joints are looser, making
them prone to overstretching.

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> 

Sean Tabaie, an orthopedic surgeon at Children’s National Hospital in D.C., says
his colleagues are shocked when he sends them Instagram or TikTok videos from
chiropractic clinics treating infants.

“Ultimately, there is no way you’re going to get an improvement in a newborn
from a manipulation,” Tabaie said. “The only thing that you might possibly cause
is harm.”

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Chiropractors are licensed health professionals who use stretching, pressure and
joint manipulation, particularly on the spine. While chiropractic care is
typically viewed as an “alternative” therapy, there are some data in adults that
suggest these treatments may help certain conditions, including low back pain.

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Anthony Stans, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon at Mayo Clinic Children’s Center
in Rochester, Minn., says he would caution parents against chiropractic
treatment for babies.

“To my knowledge, there is little to no evidence that chiropractic care changes
the natural history of any disease or condition,” Stans said.

The American Academy of Pediatrics said in an email that the organization does
not have an “official policy” on chiropractic care for infants or toddlers. A
2017 AAP report on alternative therapies concluded that “high-quality evidence”
is lacking for spinal manipulation in infants and children for problems not
caused by muscle or skeletal issues.

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Parents say part of the reason they are attracted to chiropractic care is that
practitioners promise relief for problems traditional medicine often cannot
solve, particularly colic, one of the most distressing and little understood
conditions that affect newborns.

Colic is intense and prolonged crying in an otherwise healthy infant, but the
crying episodes typically resolve over time, without treatment, according to the
Mayo Clinic.

In a 2021 study, researchers in Denmark conducted a randomized, controlled trial
of chiropractic care that studied 185 colicky babies. The chiropractors used
light pressure treatments on the baby’s spine or neck, depending on where the
child’s movement appeared to be restricted.

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“You do a touch-and-hold technique where you actually put your finger on the
joint and just leave it with a slight pressure,” said Lise Hestbaek, one of the
study authors and a former chiropractor who is now a professor at the University
of Southern Denmark. She said the level of light pressure is about the same as
the “amount of pressure you can apply to your eyeball without pain.”

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Although the researchers noted a trend in the data suggesting that the babies
treated with chiropractic care seemed to cry less, the findings weren’t
statistically meaningful, even after a follow-up analysis of just babies with
musculosketal problems. “That was a surprise to us,” Hestbaek said.

A new study of 58 colicky babies in Spain found that babies given “light touch
manual therapy” cried significantly less than those who received no treatment.
But unlike in the Danish study, parents in the Spanish study weren’t “blinded,”
meaning they were aware of the treatment, which can bias the results.

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Hestbaek said she continues to advise parents to visit a chiropractor who
specializes in treating small children. “You owe it to the baby to try,” she
said.

Joy Weydert, the director of pediatric integrative medicine at the University of
Arizona’s Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine, said it can be
challenging “to get that level of evidence” for manual therapies such as
chiropractic care. She said the treatments may help relieve the discomfort of
colic or reflux, but it’s difficult to measure.

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“Conventional medicine has to evolve to understand what chiropractic is all
about,” Weydert said.

Parents who take their babies to chiropractors are believers. A 2019 article in
the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics reported on 2,000
mothers in the United Kingdom who took their infants to a chiropractic clinic
for a range of problems, including feeding concerns, sleep issues and excessive
crying. While the study didn’t measure whether the treatments worked, 82 percent
of the mothers believed they did, reporting a “definite improvement” in their
children.

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Kassandra Borba, 33, a mortgage loan officer who lives in Chowchilla, Calif.,
went to a chiropractor as a child and began taking her older son when he was 2
weeks old because, she said, he was having trouble turning his head to the left
side. Now she takes her second son, who is about 7 weeks old.

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“I always knew that I wanted to start them young and introduce them,” Borba
said. “And, of course, the adjustments for the newborns — they’re literally just
a tap on the spine or a tap on the neck area. It’s nothing like adults.”

Judd, the Corsicana chiropractor, said his focus is to make sure babies have
free, comfortable movement. He said insurance companies don’t cover his
treatments for children, so parents pay out of pocket. If his treatments weren’t
working, he said, people wouldn’t spend the money.

“I’m not people’s first stop. They’ve been to the pediatrician,” Judd said.

Michael Milobsky, a pediatrician with a primary care practice in Castle Rock,
Colo., and a father of seven, said he understands why parents would “literally
do anything” to alleviate their children’s colicky symptoms. Milobsky believes
that part of the problem is pediatricians don’t have the time to answer the
concerns of parents.

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“Colic is a developmental phase in a normal kid,” Milobsky said. “But it’s been
sold as something that can be treated or solved, as opposed to being understood
that this is just a developmental period that has a wide spectrum of
presentations.”

Milobsky, who has a TikTok account with more than 110,000 followers, said that
despite his reservations about chiropractic care, he doesn’t try to talk parents
out of it. “In the end, they’ve already decided,” he said.

The American Chiropractic Association says that while treatments for children
are safe and effective, more research is needed to prove they work.

“We still haven’t been able to demonstrate in the research the effectiveness
that we’ve seen clinically,” said Jennifer Brocker, the president of the ACA’s
Council on Chiropractic Pediatrics and a practicing chiropractor in Portland,
Ore.

“We can’t really say for sure what’s happening,” she said. “It’s sort of like a
black box. But, what we do know is that, clinically, what we’re doing is
effective because we see a change in the symptoms of the child.”


READ MORE FROM WELL+BEING

Well+Being shares news and advice for living well every day. Sign up for our
newsletter to get tips directly in your inbox.

Mind: Considering therapy but don’t know where to begin? We rounded up tips for
starting and getting the most out of it. Another option to think about: group
counseling. For other ways to improve your mental well-being, here’s what
science says about exercise, meditation and more.

Body: Do you really need an annual checkup every year? If you want to add
healthy years to your life, here’s what longevity research says is most
important.

Life: We know the world can feel bleak sometimes. But here’s how experts say you
can still create a meaningful life amid the chaos. Also check out some of our
guides about building relationships with others, including why you always think
your friends are upset with you, and how to recognize and respond to
gaslighting.

Food: Looking to eat healthier? Here are 6 tips for getting started. And if
you’re a picky eater, we’ve got some strategies to help you explore more foods.
We’ve also compiled some tips for eating right before and after you exercise.

Fitness: Getting back into the habit of working out can be tough. Start with
these tips. Even short workouts can be surprisingly effective. Read more about
how to make sure you’re giving your body enough chance to recover, and how to
deal with sore muscles.

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