Improvement in Quality of Life for Six Pregnant Patients Undergoing Chiropractic Care: The Promise of PROMIS

CASE SERIES

Improvement in Quality of Life for Six Pregnant Patients Undergoing Chiropractic Care: The Promise of PROMIS

Joel Alcantara, DC Bio & Jeanne Ohm, DC Bio

Journal of Pediatric, Maternal & Family Health - Chiropractic ~ Volume 2013 ~ Issue 1 ~ Pages 11-14

Abstract

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Introduction: The use of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) measures in chiropractic pregnant patients remains virtually non-existent.  In this paper pregnant patients are characterized showcasing the use of the NIH PROMIS program to determine baseline HRQoL measures.

Methods: In addition to describing sociodemographic and clinical data, patient-centered outcomes measures utilizing the PROMIS-29 Profile V1.0 are demonstrated.

Results:   Six pregnant patients (average age=33.33 years) with average parity at 0.33 and mean gestation of 20 weeks are described. Their primary caregivers were obstetrician/gynecologists, nurse-midwives and midwives. All were aware of concurrent chiropractic care. The patients presented with NMS complaints and for wellness care. The PROMIS scoring demonstrated the dynamic nature of the HRQoL domains in pregnant patients with improvements (i.e., fear/anxiety, pain interference and satisfaction with social roles) and decrements (i.e., physical functioning and sleep disturbance) in HRQoL domains.

Discussion:   Evidence-informed practice expects that some aspect of chiropractic patients’ HRQoL measures will have demonstrable improvements. The use of PROMIS within a chiropractic Practice Based Research Network (PBRN) offers promise in this regard.

Conclusion:  Pregnant patients attending chiropractic care within a PBRN are characterized using PROMIS HRQoL measures. The use of valid outcome measures to demonstrate chiropractic effectiveness should be further implemented in research and practice.

Keywords:  Chiropractic, Practice Based Research Network, pregnancy, Health-related quality of life, PROMIS

Allergies less common among kids born outside US

Children who move to the United States have a lower risk of allergies than kids born in this country, a new study suggests.

In the study, children who immigrated to the United States were about 44 percent less likely to have an allergy condition — including asthma, eczema, hay fever or food allergies — compared with kids born in the country.

The study is published today (April 29) in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.

Children need to "eat dirt" so to speak. We as parents need to expose our children to the environment around us and let the child's God given immune system get a workout. If you wanted to get stronger or run faster you need to exercise, the same is true for the immune system. Give it a workout and make sure it is functioning at its best. How do you know if it is not? Have them checked by a pediatric chiropractor. (That's me, Dr. Maly)

The findings support the " hygiene hypothesis," which proposes that exposure to germs or infections during early childhood may protect against some allergies, the study authors said.

However, the apparent protection from allergies seen in the study was not permanent. Foreign-born children who lived in the United States for more than 10 years were about three times more likely to develop an allergy compared to foreign-born children who lived in the country for two years or less, the study found.

The findings are in line with what the researchers had observed anecdotally in their own practice: people who immigrate to the United States tend to develop allergies at a later age than those who were born here, said study researcher Dr. Jonathan Silverberg, a dermatologist at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York City.

The new findings suggest that allergies may arise differently depending on where a person was born, a topic that needs further study, Silverberg said.

Previous studies had shown that the prevalence of childhood allergies is higher in the United States than in other countries such as Mexico and China. However, few studies had examined the risk of allergies among U.S. immigrants.

The new study was based on information from about 91,800 U.S. children. Parents were asked in a survey in 2007 and 2008 whether a doctor had ever told them that their child had asthma, eczema, hay fever or food allergies.

About 34 percent of children born in the United States had an allergy, compared with about 20 percent of those born outside the country. The link held true regardless of participants' ethnicity, income level or whether they lived in an urban or rural area.

Children born outside the United States were 73 percent less likely to have asthma, 55 percent less likely to have eczema, 66 percent less likely to have hay fever and 20 percent less likely to have a food allergy compared with kids born in the United States.

Children who were born in the United States but whose parents were immigrants also had a reduced risk of allergies.

Foreign-born children who lived in the United States for longer than 10 years were more likely to have eczema or hay fever than those who lived in the country for two years or less.

The new study cannot say why children born in the United States are at greater risk for allergies than those born in other countries.

Silverberg said he suspects that a number of factors, including climate, diet and obesity, play a role in triggering allergies. 

By Rachael Rettner, MyHealthNewsDaily

Carry on: Study finds it's good to hold your baby

When mothers in the study carried their babies while walking around, the infants became noticeably more relaxed and stopped crying and squirming. The babies' rapidly beating hearts also slowed down, evidence that the children were feeling calmer.A new study from Japan confirms what many mothers may know instinctively: Picking up and carrying a fussy baby usually calms down and relaxes the child, making the move a good one for both moms and infants. 

"Infants become calm and relaxed when they are carried by their mother," said study researcher Dr. Kumi Kuroda, who investigates social behavior at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Saitama, Japan. The study observed strikingly similar responses in mouse babies.

Since carrying (meaning holding while walking) can help stop an infant from crying, Kuroda said, it can offer mothers a way to soothe short-term irritations to their children, such as scary noises or vaccinations.

Getty Images stock

A new study confirms: Hold that baby as much as you want!

The findings were published online today (April 18) in the journal Current Biology.

A strong calming effect For the small study, researchers monitored the responses of 12 healthy infants ages 1 month to 6 months. The scientists wanted to discover the most effective way for mothers to calm a crying baby over a 30-second period — simply holding the baby or carrying the infant while walking.

Young babies carried by a walking mother were the most relaxed and soothed, compared with infants whose mothers sat in a chair and held them, the study found. As a mother stood up and started to walk with her child cradled close in her arms, scientists observed an automatic change in the baby's behavior.

These results held even after the researchers took into account other factors, such as the child's age and sex, and the mother's age and walking speed.

Kuroda said she was surprised by the strength of the calming effect from maternal holding and walking. In observing experiments on both humans and mice, she was amazed at how quickly the heart rate slowed, and by how much immediately after a mother started walking. (Mother mice pick up their young by the scruff of their neck with their mouths.)

According to the researchers, maternal walking may be more effective in calming infants than other kinds of rhythmic motion, such as rocking.

Advice for parents When an underlying reason for crying persists, such as hunger or sustained pain, the infant may start crying again soon after the end of carrying.

That's why Kuroda recommended that when a baby starts crying, a brief period of carrying may help parents to identify the cause of the tears. She acknowledged carrying might not completely stop the crying, but it may prevent parents from becoming frustrated by a crying infant.

The findings also have implications for one parenting technique in which parents let babies cry as a way to help them learn to fall asleep by themselves, the researchers said.

"Our study suggests why some babies do not respond well to the 'cry-it-out' parenting method," Kuroda said.

Proponents of the technique advise parents to let infants, after a certain age, cry themselves to sleep — without mom or dad comforting them — in the hopes the baby will learn how to soothe himself or herself.

But Kuroda said that calming by maternal carrying, as well as crying during separation, are both built-in mechanisms for infant survival. These behaviors have been hard-wired for millions of years. "Changing these reactions would be possible as infants are flexible, but it may take time," she said.

Although this study looked at a baby's behavior in response to its mother, Kuroda said the effect is not specific to moms, and any primary caregiver for the infant can perform the carrying. The researchers observed the same carrying-induced calming effects when fathers, grandmothers and an unfamiliar female with caregiving experience carried babies who were under 2 months old, Kuroda said.

Cari Nierenberg

MyHealthNewsDaily

MSG is the grim reaper of food additives

Monosodium Glutamate is a neurotoxin that can be legally hidden from you and/or be labeled "natural flavors" in the ingredients list. MSG is not a natural flavor - in fact, it can cause brain lesions, neuro-endocrine disorders, and neurodegenerative disease in humans, but you won't hear any doctors of Western Medicine mentioning that at your next extreme migraine emergency visit. There are more than 25 names for MSG, so sometimes you find it spread out a little, just in case the manufacturer gets "checked out" by anyone other than the FDA.

The FDA does not require that any source of MSG be identified. This means that the FDA code does not require that "constituents" of an ingredient be disclosed to the consumer. Yet in hundreds of studies around the world, scientists are creating obese mice using MSG because it triples the amount of insulin the pancreas creates, causing rats (and perhaps humans) to become obese. This is what the FDA calls natural. There's even a name for the fat rodents that eat this "Natural Flavor" additive: they're called "MSG-Treated Rats."

Not only is MSG scientifically proven to cause obesity, it is an addictive substance. Since its introduction into the American food supply 50 years ago, MSG has been added in larger and larger doses to processed meals, soups, chips, and fast foods. The FDA has set no limits on how much of it can be added to food.

How We Are Making Our Children Sick part 6 of 6

Subluxation

The focus of science has shifted from separate entities of the immune system and nervous system to an interactive immunology model. It is now understood that there is an intimate connection between the nervous system and the immune system, and that neurotransmitters can influence the activities of the immune system. In fact, nerve fibers physically link the nervous system and the immune system and there is a constant traffic of information that goes back and forth between the brain and the immune system.

The sympathetic division of the nervous system is the part of the nervous system that reacts to stress. It is the “fight or flight” control center. The sympathetic division of the nervous system also regulates all aspects of immune function, and abnormal activity of the sympathetic nervous system contributes to the cause of conditions where a selection of humoral versus the cell-mediated response plays a role, including allergic reactions.

Spinal movement influences the sympathetic nervous system. Changes to the relative position or movement in the spine interfere with the sympathetic nervous system causing the release of stress hormones and altering immune cell function. The result is suppression of the cell-mediated immune response, and in its absence an increase of the humoral response.

Early stress and trauma is believed to play a profound role in the development of spinal dysfunction, or subluxation, causing immune imbalance. In his research, Gottfried Guttman M.D., found that spinal injury was present in more than 80% of the infants he examined shortly after birth, causing interference in sympathetic function. Tissue injury to the spine and surrounding soft tissue results in scar tissue deposition in the muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints. This leads to decreased motion in the joints and surrounding tissues. Neurologic changes accompany the spinal insult. This leads to chemical changes and a general shift in the body to the stress response or the “fight or flight” response. Subluxation in the infant and child has been associated with stress experienced at birth, particularly as the result of interventions, and early falls or other traumas.

Restoring proper function to the spine through chiropractic adjustments removes the interference in the nervous system shifting the body away from the sympathetic “alarm” response allowing the immune system to regain equilibrium and reducing hypersensitive reactions. In one study, 81 children under chiropractic care took part in a self-reported asthma impairment study. The children were assessed before and two months after chiropractic care using an asthma impairment questionnaire. Significantly lower impairment rating scores (improvement) was reported for 90.1% of subjects 60 days after chiropractic care in comparison to their pre-chiropractic scores. In addition, 30.9% of the children decreased their dosage of medication by an average of 66.5% while under chiropractic care. Twenty-four of the patients who reported asthma attacks 30-days prior to the study had significantly decreased attacks by an average of 44.9%.

Our children are born with an immune system that is capable of operating against anything that threatens it. Our role as parents should be to support the natural responses of their body in every way that we can; in some cases, that means giving the body a chance to overcome an infection on its own with out antibiotics. In another case, it means providing the proper nutrients to restore inner balance. Most importantly, it means realizing that when a child’s nervous system has interference, the body still knows what it is supposed to do, but is simply unable to do it. Let’s start by removing the interference from the body and then getting out of its way—appreciating that the fever and congestion and vomiting are all part of the miracle that is our child’s immune system working properly, not a sign that their body is failing. The less we focus on the eradication of germs and the more emphasis we place on creating a strong, balanced body, free of subluxation, the better off our children will be.

How We Are Making Our Children Sick part 5 of 6

Dietary Fat Consumption

Chicken nuggets, potato chips, and other fried foods, while convenient for parents, are relegating their children’s immune systems to behave badly. Another factor that has been identified as a contributor to the rise in allergic diseases is the increased consumption of omega-6 fatty acids and the decreased consumption of omega-3 fatty acids. It has been known for many years that individuals with allergic conditions have disproportionately high levels of omega- 6 fatty acids in their blood. Omega-6 fatty acids actually suppress the immune system and promote inflammation, and allergic responses are, by their very nature, inflammatory. Sources of omega-6 fatty acids are corn, cotton, soybean, peanut, safflower, and sunflower. Omega-6 fatty acids are also present in most animal products.

Inversely, omega-3 fatty acids are known to enhance immunity, reduce inflammation, and protect the nervous system. Dietary omega-3 fatty acids have well documented immunological effects. Sources are flax, hemp, walnut, and cold water fatty fish, especially salmon. It is important to note though that the plant sources of omega-3 fatty acids are inadequate for infants and thus offer minimal benefit early in life. One study showed that children who regularly consumed oily fish were 74% less likely to develop asthma. Other studies show that fish oil supplementation is associated with improved asthma symptoms and reduced medication usage. The immune benefits of omega-3 fatty acids are likely greater during the critical stages of early immune development before the allergic responses are established, so it is recommended that women monitor their fatty acid intake during pregnancy and continue to do while nursing. Once the child is old enough there are omega-3 products designed specifically for children.

How We Are Making Our Children Sick part 4 of 6

Vaccination

Most childhood infections are caused by viruses, and thus do not respond to antibiotics, hence the development of our current vaccine program. Infections contracted naturally are ordinarily filtered through a series of immune system defenses. Naturally-contracted viral diseases stimulate a cell-mediated response, and it appears that because of this, early viral infections are protective against allergic diseases. When a vaccine is injected directly into the blood stream, it gains access to all of the major tissues and organs of the body without the body’s normal advantage of a total immune response. This results in only partial immunity, consequently the need for “booster” shots. Vaccines stimulate a humoral response so their contents are never discharged from the body, the way they would be if the disease were naturally contracted, leaving the body in a chronic state of sensitization. In a study of 448 children, 243 had been vaccinated against whooping cough. Of these, 10% had asthma compared to less than 2% of the 205 children in the non-vaccinated group, suggesting that the pertussis vaccination can increase the risk of developing asthma by more than five times.