Birth Trauma

The consequences of birth trauma: a case report of failure to thrive in an infant with cephalohematoma and congenital torticollis. Anderson, C International Chiropractic Association Review, Fall 2001 P 79-84.

This paper discusses facial paralysis, brachial plexus damage, Erb's Palsy, torticollis and cephalohematoma (among others) as a consequence of birth trauma.

Cephalohematoma is bleeding beneath the cranial bones due to ripping of veins during delivery and affects about 1% of newborns. This occurs as a result of prolonged labor, vacuum extraction or a forceps delivery and generally disappears after a few weeks or months.

The case presented is of a 7 week-old-male brought to the chiropractor with complaints of poor suck, little weight gain, torticollis and cephalohematoma. The mother had taken the baby to a torticollis clinic where the parents were told to stretch his neck with every diaper change. It resulted in little change.

Chiropractic care consisted of spinal adjustments to: C1, C2, T9, L5 and sacrum with craniosacral therapy on the occipital bone, restoring movement to the parietal and sphenoid bones.

After the first visit, the mother remarked that the baby was sucking better, sleeping better and sleeping longer. By two weeks of care, the hematomas decreased markedly in size and the torticollis had resolved.

By the end of a month's care, there was almost complete resolution of the hematomas.

Failure to thrive. Swaim RT. Gatrost A, Towne K ACA Journal of Chiropractic, March 1990;27(3):63-65

This paper discusses the need for spinal care in a failure to thrive baby: "If failure to thrive is suspected in a pediatric patient the chiropractor must bring up the matter with the parents as they may be unaware of anything being wrong. Of course it almost goes without saying that the child should be examined for vertebral subluxation as a source of physiological dysfunctioning."


Copyright 2004 Koren Publications, Inc. & Tedd Koren, D.C.