Our children are so, so special to us! Sometimes, in an effort to protect them, we can be overprotective and deprive them of necessary and valuable experiences.

This is a common phenomenon in health care where we may not reach out and try new modalities unfamiliar to us, even when we are not achieving satisfactory results with other methods.

If chiropractic care is necessary to your good health and for reaching your full potential in life as an adult, then it logically follows that it is even more necessary for a child!

Chiropractic techniques and education have been developed that allow gentle, precise correction to the body and provide removal of nerve interference.

Kiro Kids in Australia provides chiropractic care for children and provides continuing education for chiropractors who desire to improve their pediatric practices.

Most chiropractors believe in the value of regular health checks from birth and through childhood for the presence of 'subluxation'. Interestingly, subluxation does not just occur in the spine and in infants is just as likely to occur anywhere in the body.

Just as maternal health nurses perform wellness checks at prescribed intervals of weeks and months at certain milestone ages, chiropractors do not suggest parents wait until they observe unusual signs or symptoms before considering the worth of a health check up for subluxation.

However, when first time parents who are unfamiliar with this philosophy do think about attending a chiropractor, it may be for signs such as:

• Breastfeeding difficulties in the very young such as attachment difficulty or preference to feeding on one side.

• Restricted head or neck movement to one side.

• A flattened head at the back or one side.

• One shoulder higher than the other.

• One lower limb longer than another.

• Difficulty in neck, arm or hip movements.

• Disturbed sleeping patterns.

• Recurrent viral illnesses such as ear infection.

• Colic/reflux and other feeding problems.

And the list of symptoms go on. There might be a childhood accident or fall that concerns the parent and they simply seek assurance from the chiropractor.

Regardless, most chiropractors find that small problems dealt with early do not become larger problems and the numerous falls, sports injuries, playground bumps, heavy school bags and postural pressures of the TV/internet age should not be ignored.

Brad snores, I mean he snores so loudly we are kept awake and we are two rooms down the hall. We are wondering if he has a neck problem maybe - this was Brett and Tracey's story as they brought their son Brad to the Kiro Kids clinic in Ballarat.

Dr Neil Davies, Chiropractor, presents a podcast in this series on cases which educate chiropractors to carefully examine children for hidden pathology.