A moving crew gets a couch through a doorway by turning the couch.
The doorway is the doorway. It has one shape and it isn't going to negotiate. So everything that happens next happens to the couch. Up on one end, angled, walked through at a diagonal by people who've done it a thousand times. And on the other side, the first thing a good crew does is set it down and square it up.
The couch is fine. It also just got turned sideways.
That's about the most honest picture I have for what your baby did on the way here, and it almost never gets described to the people who lived through it.
Your pelvis is a passage with a fixed shape. It gives a little, and pregnancy hormones give it a little more, but fundamentally it's bone.
So your baby is the one who adapts. And a newborn is built to. That skull isn't one solid dome. It's separate plates joined by seams, and the seams are open on purpose, so the bones can slide and overlap and let the head narrow itself to the space available. That is the design.
And it isn't only the head. The chin tucks. The shoulders rotate to line up with the widest part of the passage. The whole body angles, extends and turns, at the right points, in the right order. Nobody taught it to your baby.
So when I say birth is a mechanical event, I don't mean a rough one or a damaging one. I mean real forces moved through a real body in a real direction, and the body they moved through is the newest one in the house.
One more thing, plainly.
This is not a story about your birth. I'm not grading it. I'm not reading anything backwards into it. And I'm not going to tell you that something about how your child arrived caused something you're worried about now. I don't know that. Nobody does. And it would be a rotten thing to put on a mother.
What I am saying is much smaller. Something physical happened. When something physical happens to a body, checking it afterward is reasonable.
Your baby did the work of getting through, and that's worth a look afterward.
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.
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Your first visit includes our INSiGHT nervous system scans. X-rays, if clinically necessary, are always discussed with you first.
