There's a question almost every parent has and almost none of them ask out loud.
You're standing beside the table watching me look at your three-week-old, making pleasant conversation, and underneath the conversation is the thing you actually want to know. How much of what happens to me is going to happen to her?
Fair question, and I'd rather hand you the answer than make you work up to asking.
You can test it on yourself before you finish this paragraph.
Close one eye. Take your index finger, press gently on the closed lid, and stop the second you feel the eye give underneath it. That amount, right there, is the reference. Dr. Heidi Haavik puts it in one sentence: I don't apply more pressure than what you would do if you press on your eyeball.
You just felt it. That's the whole lesson and it took three seconds.
A number is easier to trust when you can picture the hand, so here it is in the room.
The contact is one fingertip. Usually the pad of my little finger. Often your baby is on your chest, or over your shoulder, or lying across your forearm mid-feed, because babies do better where they already are.
The check comes first. I hold that contact long enough to feel whether the tissue gives and whether the segment moves the way segments that age should. Most of the appointment is this part.
Where the exam calls for an input, it's small, quick and controlled. A specific movement, measured in millimeters, over in a fraction of a second. Parents routinely keep talking straight through it and then ask me when I'm going to start.
For scale, hold that next to something your baby already did. Getting through the birth canal is the most mechanically demanding thing most human beings ever do, and that same neck managed it.
Force was never the mechanism. What makes an input do anything is where it lands and when.
If you're ever curious what's about to happen to your child, say so, and I'll do it on the back of your own hand first.
Press gently on your own closed eye. That's more pressure than I use on a baby.
Keep reading: Babies and Development
Individual results vary. Chiropractic care does not diagnose, treat, or cure any disease or condition. This information is educational and not a substitute for medical care. Sláinte provides wellness chiropractic care and works alongside your medical team.
Ready to put this into practice for your family?
Your first visit includes our INSiGHT nervous system scans. X-rays, if clinically necessary, are always discussed with you first.
