What Is Your Child’s Posture Telling You?
By Dr. Cynthia Horner
Your Child’s Posture can Tell you a Lot about Their Health.
Children are so elastic they seldom notice any restriction in motion or pain caused by muscles or joints. Unnatural or prolonged posture creates changes in how joints move no matter how old you are. When the joints of the spine do not roll, slide and glide as they are meant to, pressure on adjacent nerves results. Pressure on nerves always creates problems to what lies at the end of the nerve. These problems stay with them until adulthood when the dysfunction finally becomes so severe that pain and restriction of movement brings them looking for help. Wouldn’t it be great to catch these small structural problems before they become big ones? As a chiropractor in Greenville, SC I do these simple checks on children in my office every week.
Try this with your children
What you see:
Stand you child in front of you place your thumb under their shoulder blades. Is one shoulder blade higher than the other?
What may have caused this:
The low shoulder is usually the problem. Overuse of the arm from mousing on a computer or playing video games can create a tight chest muscle that pulls the shoulder down and forward. The muscles around the shoulder blades are anchored to vertebrae of the spine. Vertebrae will become misaligned or subluxated affecting the nerve that travels from the spinal cord between the vertebrae and out to organs in the upper part of the body.
What health effect it may have caused in the body:
Lying at the end of the nerves from the lower neck and shoulder blades are:
thyroid
heart
lungs
fingers
What you see:
With your child standing in front of you, ask him or her to close their eyes and face upward, then downward, then with eyes remaining closed face straight ahead. Does their head tilt left or right?
What may have caused this:
Holding the cell phone to their head or worse yet holding it to their head with one raised shoulder while using both hands. Or sleeping with a pillow too high or too many pillows can be the cause. While on their back it forces their chin to their chest, while on their side it forces their head toward their shoulder.
What health effects it may have caused in the body:
Lying at the end of the nerves from the mid and upper neck are:
throat
sinuses
ears
What you see :
Ask your child or teen to lie face down on the floor then you bend their legs at the knees bringing their heels toward their buttocks. Do their hips ‘hunch up’ or rise off the floor?
What may have caused this:
Carrying heavy loads on their backs such as backpacks, sitting for long periods of time or sitting hunched over with a round back tightens and weakens core muscle that attach to low back vertebrae.
What health effects it may have caused in the body:
Lying at the end of the nerves from the mid to lower back are:
large intestines
appendix
sex organs
bladder
knees
