A case study documented the success with chiropractic of the care of an infant suffering from ear infections and respiratory tract infection. The study was published in the scientific periodical, the Journal of Pediatric, Maternal & Family Health, on December 22, 2010.
In this case study, a twenty-one-month-old girl was brought to the chiropractors office suffering from Otitis Media, (“OM”), more commonly known as ear infections, and Respiratory Syncytial Virus (“RSV”), a respiratory tract infection. The young girl was medically diagnosed with her first ear infection when she was only one month old. She was diagnosed with respiratory infections at nine months old.
The study denotes that otitis media is the most frequent reason for physician visits for children under the age of fifteen and the second most common diagnosis in medicine. The authors report that the girl was not breastfed and note that studies have shown that infants who are not breastfed have double the odds of developing recurring otitis media as compared to infants who are breastfed for the first four months of life.
According to the study author, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the most common cause of viral lower respiratory tract infection in infants and children with 90% of children infected by 2 years of age. Most commonly children affected by this are diagnosed with bronchiolitis or pneumonia.
In this case the girl’s mother brought her baby daughter to the chiropractor because her baby was not getting any results after a year-and-a-half of medical care. According to the study, the mother reported that her daughter had been on a nebulizer for the past year and found the current care plan by the pediatrician consisting of antibiotics and bronchodilators to be frustrating because her daughter was not getting well.
A chiropractic examination was performed and the conclusion was that the child did have vertebral subluxations resulting in interference to the baby’s nervous system. A course of chiropractic care was initiated designed to correct the spinal misalignments from the subluxations.
Within one week of the onset of chiropractic care the mother reported an improvement in her baby’s sleep. Within one month the ear infections had resolved and the girls mother discontinued the antibiotics. Within three months of care, she brought her child back to the pediatrician and was told the child no longer had a respiratory infection, and therefore the nebulizer treatments were discontinued.
In the discussion of this case report, the authors explain the positive results of this case by stating, “The chiropractic profession has claimed favorable clinical responses for otitis media and other upper respiratory infections for nearly 100 years and evidence is increasingly suggesting that the nervous system is capable of modulating the immune system.”
