A four-day old baby was taken to a chiropractor because she was not sleeping.
The Australian baby’s treatment was uploaded to YouTube, and it was panned by other doctors. One doctor even said that babies should not be taken to chiropractors under any circumstance
“I have to unfortunately extend her a little bit to get her in the right place,” the doctor in the video tells the parents.
After a bit, a loud crack is heard (at around the 3:15 minute in the video), and the baby starts crying.
“When you see the patients returned with these children, they always report that the child is just so much more comfortable, they sleep so much better, they eat so much better,” he adds.
Some experts were angry over the footage.
“'There is actually no evidence whatsoever that manipulating the spine makes any difference to things such as colic or asthma,” Dr. Frank Jones, who is president of The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, told MailOnline. “I think that this is an unnecessary and seemingly almost cruel process that there is actually no evidence to support. Why would you ever ever do that? It should not be advertised, it should not be practiced.”
And Melbourne surgeon John Cunningham, who specializes in spines, said that he’s not sure why a chiropractor would adjust the spine of a newborn infant.
“There’s not many things that make an orthopedic surgeon emotional, but when you see a premature baby having its back cracked, it literally makes my eyes water,” he told ABC Online. “There would be risks of harm. There would be risks that the child could suffer some sort of fracture. Why would you do it? This is the thing that goes through my mind when I watch that video. Why on earth would you do that to a newborn?”
The chiropractor in the video, Ian Rossborough, said the baby had colic, which is a term for young babies’ unexplained bouts of crying. The chiropractor work helped the baby, he said.
“When you see the patients returned with these children, they always report that the child is just so much more comfortable, they sleep so much better, they eat so much better,” he told ABC Online.
