Excerpt: The top priority in chiropractic care for the pediatric patient, in fact, the only priority, is the safety of our care for that child. When I have spoken to a wide scope of clinicians and health care providers on this topic, I realized that they could not hear any details about our care until they were assured of the safety of our care. A hospital midwife familiar with our service and who referred many infants to our university-affiliated clinic* stated, “Chiropractic care may not help EVERY baby, but it will not hurt ANY baby.”
She based this statement upon her experience of years of cooperative care between the hospital and chiropractic clinic. It was very reassuring to hear that statement from a colleague. However, as clinicians who manage the most precious entity in the world, newborns, infants and children, we cannot rest on our past performance but must stay constantly updated.
The purpose of this editorial is to provide the briefest of reviews of the safety record of chiropractic manual therapy for children along with suggesting some reminders for maintaining safety within our practices. The goal is to improve confidence in the safety of our care, based on more than our personal experience, although that is an important element as well.
To be fair, I must start with a disclaimer. I cannot guarantee that this investigation is definitive because this is an editorial and not a systematic review, so it is a given that the search cannot be considered exhaustive, but based upon opinion (as well as word count) as to what is included or not.
Author affiliation: AECC University College Clinic, Bournemouth, England
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