#trending: Are chiropractic treatments for babies safe? Surge in ‘chirobaby’ TikTok videos raises concern

SINGAPORE — In 2019, an Australian chiropractor named Andrew Arnold sparked outrage after holding a two-week-old baby upside down in a viral video. He was later banned from treating children pending investigations by the authorities.

By contrast, a similar video posted two years later of an American chiropractor dangling a baby by her legs as he checked her spine was received much more favourably, with 2.4 million likes on TikTok.

Hundreds of videos of chiropractors massaging, stretching and performing “adjustments” on little infants have been popping up on TikTok lately, with hashtags such as “babychiropractor”, “chirobaby” and “babycracks” getting more than 17.1 million views on the platform.

Although the toned-down treatments do not involve contortions or produce the dramatic pops and cracks typical of videos featuring adults, the trend has raised concerns on whether such procedures are safe for the tiny patients.

WHAT IS CHIROPRACTIC?

Chiropractic is the treatment of conditions or disorders within the neuro-musculoskeletal system through manual manipulation such as by pressing a person's bone joints. As with other forms of alternative medicine, the practice has its fair share of believers and naysayers. 

In Singapore, chiropractic is regarded by the authorities as an "alternative and complementary" form of treatment. Chiropractors are expected to self-regulate.

Some practitioners and parents on TikTok are extolling the benefits of chiropractic care on infants, claiming that it can treat everything from colic to constipation, gastric reflux and even trauma that babies experience in childbirth.

A website of Singapore-based clinic Chiropractic Concepts states that some misalignments can occur as early as “while the child is still in the womb”. It claims that the curled-up position a baby assumes in the womb, as well as the stretching and pulling it experiences during birth “can lead to an imbalance in (a baby’s) bone structure”.

Ms Kurin Emerick, a TikTok influencer in the United States who regularly shares content on natural parenting, told BuzzFeed News that she had arranged for her chiropractor to attend her home-birth and “adjusted” her newborn daughter at only two hours old. She had also previously taken her older son for his first "adjustment" when he was just three days old.

Ms Emerick claimed that she has seen improvements in her children’s sleep, breastfeeding, pain relief and overall happiness as a result of chiropractic treatment.

Ms Kassandra Borba from Chowchilla, California told The Washington Post that she went to a chiropractor as a child and began taking her older son to one when he was two weeks old because he was having trouble turning his head to the left. She now does the same for her second son, who is about seven weeks old.

“I always knew that I wanted to start them young and introduce them,” Ms Borba said. “And, of course, the adjustments for the newborns — they’re literally just a tap on the spine or a tap on the neck area. It’s nothing like (what is done for) adults.”

A quick survey by TODAY of TikTok accounts run by chiropractors in Singapore revealed that videos of chiropractic treatments on babies are not as common here.

Answering a question on the minimum age required to see a chiropractor, Dr Jenny Li of Re:chiro Singapore said in a TikTok video that the youngest patient the practice has seen was “just a few month(s) old”. Dr Li is a doctor of chiropractic but not a medical doctor.

She explained that chiropractors who treat anyone under the age of two have to “go for a little bit more extensive training”.

CRITICISM GROWS AGAINST INFANT CHIROPRACTIC CARE

However, as the following in support of the practice grows, so has the criticism against it.

Some groups have dismissed it as “snake oil for babies”, “total quackery” and “pseudoscience”.

In a response to a viral video of a newborn undergoing chiropractic adjustment, US resident physician Mutahir Farhan — who regularly explains viral medical videos to his 1.2 million TikTok followers — claimed that such manipulations “are not supported by science or evidence”.

Dr Farhan explains that babies are “made for the birthing process” and have flexible bones and joints “for this exact reason”. Therefore, they do not need to be adjusted after childbirth.

A study published in Archives of Disease in Childhood in 2001 found that chiropractic treatment was no more effective than a placebo when it came to treating infant colic. 

Babies in the placebo group were held by a nurse while the treatment group underwent chiropractic spinal manipulation. About 60 per cent of infants in both groups showed some degree of improvement, their parents said.

Physicians who spoke to The Washington Post said that the proliferation of infant chiropractic care on social media is worrying because the treatments could be risky. 

One worry is that a baby’s underdeveloped bones and joints make them more malleable under pressure and more prone to overstretching.

Dr Stephen George, an orthopaedic surgeon and director of spine surgery at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Florida, told BuzzFeed News that understanding the cause behind the pain or misalignment is key. Otherwise chiropractors “may be doing patients harm if they blindly assume that a manipulation won’t hurt them”.

Dr Sean Tabaie, a paediatric orthopaedic surgeon at Children's National Hospital in Washington, DC warned that “babies and children are not little adults”. 

“They're an entirely different entity as far as their anatomy (is concerned), how they experience pain, and how their muscles and bones interact.”

He advised: “If it really helps, then that's fine, you should do what you think helps your child, but you should be aware of the consequences.”

In November 2019, Mr Gan Kim Yong, then health minister of Singapore, gave a written answer in Parliament in reply to a question on how many complaints had been made against chiropractors, among other matters.

He said that over the preceding five years, the Ministry of Health had received an average of four feedbacks a year on chiropractic matters "usually related to the misleading use of titles, advertising or claims, and sales and refunds on treatment packages".

"Chiropractic services are considered as complementary and alternative treatments, and not licensed under the Private Hospital and Medical Clinic Act. Chiropractors are encouraged to practise self-regulation through their professional associations."