Every parent wants a healthy child. Good health depends upon on a strong and properly functioning immune system.
A properly functioning immune system is one of the keys to a healthy, happy child who will resist infections, allergies, and chronic illnesses.
“The cornerstone of good health is a properly functioning immune system.”
DR. ANDREW WEIL
We have learned much about the immune system in the past twenty-five years. Much of it due to cancer and AIDS research and the information has prompted a shift away from treating illness to preventing it and this approach begins with a focus on strengthening the immune system.
MANY OF THE CHARACTERISTIC SYMPTOMS OF ILLNESS, FROM NASAL DISCHARGE TO FEVER AND SWOLLEN GLANDS, ARE SIGNS THAT THE NORMAL IMMUNE RESPONSE IS PROCEEDING ON SCHEDULE.
“Symptoms represent the body's best efforts to heal itself. By treating symptoms, you are suppressing the body's natural response and inhibiting the healing process. Instead of treating symptoms, doctors should stimulate the body's defenses to allow for completion of the healing process.”
DR. STEPHEN CUMMINGS
“The focus of science has shifted from separate entities of the immune system to an interactive immunology model. In the neural-immune concept, the brain has specific, two-pathways to the immune system.”
THE LANCET
“It used to be dogma that the brain was shut away from the actions of the immune system, shielded from the outside forces of nature. But that's not how it is at all. It turns out that the brain talks directly to the immune system, sending commands that control the body's inflammatory response to infection and autoimmune diseases.”
Medical News Today
“The nervous system plays an important role in both the control and activity of the immune response. The sheer power of the brain to affect the body as a whole and general state of health is amazing.”
HUMAN ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY
Breastfeeding provides the infant with the antibodies and immune enhancing factors that develop the immunity. A baby's lymphocytes are not yet capable of producing all the antibodies necessary to fight disease. A baby acquires this ability over the first year of life.
Human breast milk is biologic specific, that is, each drop of milk is alive with millions of tiny white blood cells and immunoglobins (infection-fighting proteins) that circulate through the baby's body, ingesting and destroying harmful bacteria-like miniature pac-men.
ingesting and destroying harmful bacteria-like miniature pac-men.
As the infant is exposed to microorganisms, the lymphocytes start to make antibodies and memory cells so that when the baby comes into contact with those micro-organisms again, the baby will mount an immune response more quickly.
When babies put things into their mouths, this is a natural way of gradually exposing their immune systems to tiny antigens, which the immune system must attack and destroy, a process which strengthens and protects the immune system.
“We're at the point where the antibiotic cupboard isalmost bare. We are victims of our own blindness. We have been taking too many of them and new, deadlier organisms, like the powerful drug-resistant tuberculosis strain, have been emerging as a result.”
JEFFREY FISHER, M.D.
“Chronic middle ear problems in children have not diminished, despite the number of antibiotics being used to treat them. We have created a whole new kind of ear problem. We have used antibiotics so excessively in the first year of life that we have depressed the development of the child's immune system.”
WALTER BELENKY, M.D.
WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION
“Antibiotic therapy is not an effective treatment against otitis media (ear infection) and rates of recurrent infections are significantly higher in children who have been treated with antibiotics.”
JOURNAL OF THE AMA
A properly functioning nervous system should be the first priority in strengthening the immune system since it is the nervous system which controls all of our bodily functions. The nervous system works by sending and receiving nerve messages or impulses to all parts of the body.
The nervous system is protected by the spine, consisting of 24 moveable vertebrae. When the spine is in its proper position, it protects the nerve pathways.
The birth process, even under normal conditions, is frequently the first cause of spinal stress. After the head of the child appears, the physician grabs the baby's head and twists it around in a figure eight motion, lifting it up to receive the lower shoulder and then down to receive the upper shoulder. This creates significant stress on the spine of the baby.
“Spinal cord and brain stem traumas often occur during the process of birth but frequently escape diagnosis. Infants often experience lasting neurological defects. Spinal trauma at birth is essentially attributed to longitudinal traction, especially when this force is combined with flexion and torsion of the spinal axis during delivery.”
ABRAHAM TOWBIN, M.D.
“It might seem that birth by C-section would be the easiest and least traumatic way to be born since the infant doesn't have to hazard the rigors of a long labor or a constricting birth canal. Unfortunately, we have found that trauma to the newborn delivered section is different but no less traumatic than the trauma that occurs in a vaginal delivery.”
ARTHUR JANOV, M.D.
Birth trauma to the cervical spine and cranium can result in disorders such as headaches, vestibular problems,auditory troubles, visual disturbances, pharyngolaryngela disorders, vasomotor and secretion dysfunction andpsychic disturbances. Care to realign the neck achieves excellent results with many of these dysfunctions.
Orthopedic Medicine
“Life for the newborn depends upon the preservation and healthy functioning of the brain stem and spinal cord at the level of the upper neck.”
Abraham Towbin M.D.
Harvard Medical School
During the first two years of life, an infant often falls while learning to walk or can fall while tumbling off a bed or other piece of furniture.
Even the seemingly innocent act of playfully tossing babies up in the air and catching them often results in a whiplash"-like trauma to the spine.
Automobile accidents often involve the entire family, although infants often go unchecked because they have no obvious damage or symptoms.
Because of the structure of the infant's spine, spinal stretching from trauma is more likely to result in spinal cord trauma with nerve interference than it is in damage to the vertebral segments and soft tissue. This is frequently the cause of the first vertebral subluxation in the child’s life.
The effects of vertebral subluxations have been well documented by leading scientists and researchers from all over world.
“Nerve dysfunction is stressful to the visceral nerve and other body tissues and the lowered tissue resistance modifies the immune response and lessens the overall capability of the immune system.”
SCIENCE
“Subluxations of vertebrae occur in all parts of the spine and in all degrees. When the dislocation is so slight as to not affect the spinal cord, it will still produce disturbance in the spinal nerves passing off from the foramina.”
DR. JAMES WODDERSEE, Neurosurgeon
“Pathological changes have been observed at the cellular level after experimental compression of neural structures. These include Wallerian degeneration, dystrophic axons and occasional loss of myleniated nerve fibers.”
R. B. DELAMARTER, M.D.
In an article published in the German medical journal, Manuelle Medizine, Dr. Gotfried Gutmann, a leading researcher in the field of manipulation medicine, reported on the examination and care of more than 1,000 infants and small children which revealed the following about spinal nerve interference and childhood immune disorders:
The science of Chiropractic is founded on the premise that a proper nerve supply is essential in controlling and regulating bodily function.
A study, published in the Chiropractic Research Journal, compared the health and wellness of 200 children under Chiropractic care to 200 children under conventional medical care. The Chiropractic group had fewer ear infections, fewer allergies, fewer cases of tonsillitis and asthma. The health of the children under Chiropractic care was demonstrably superior to the children who had not received it.
“Every newborn should receive a neck and spine examination and a Chiropractic adjustment if necessary. Is that idea too difficult to accept?"
LENDON SMITH, M.D. Pediatrician
“By releasing stress on the nervous system, Chiropractic permits the immune system to function more effectively.”
DR. IRVIN KORR
Recent research by Patricia Brennan, Ph.D., suggests that spinal adjustments may have a direct effect on certain aspects of immune function.
Her group showed that when the thoracic spine (middle of back) was adjusted, the respiratory burst cycle of white blood cells was enhanced.
