Chiropractic postpartum care may help support a mother’s recovery by improving posture, reducing stress and tension, promoting better sleep, and helping them feel their best as they care for their new babies.

What is postpartum transition care, and why is it an important part of a mother’s recovery after pregnancy and childbirth?

Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: Wow, that’s a great question. So postpartum transition care is really just a continuation of what we did in prenatal care, right? So, the mom was pregnant, she came in, we did Webster protocol ideally, and she had the delivery that she wants, but pregnancy can be pretty rough on a body, right? So, there’s the weight gain, 25 to 30 pounds. They haven’t been able to exercise so their core strength decreases. Their body’s kind of been to hell and back. We basically passed a baby a little larger than a football through the birth canal, which can put a lot of stress on the pelvic floor and all these different things.

Click here to read the article, Postpartum Transition Care in its entirety on our website.

In New York City, we have one of the highest C-section rates in the country, and I’m not sure exactly why those statistics are so high, but developing a plan for a healthier pregnancy and a natural birth is so important. So, if you’re a woman in New York City looking to have a healthier natural birth or looking to have a VBAC, you absolutely need to work with a midwife or a doula who is in your camp.

Now, the OB-GYNs, they practice standard of care, and for a lot of older moms or anything that is not exactly looking right to the OB-GYN, the standard of care is almost always going to be the C-section. So that’s what they’re looking to do if anything doesn’t look right.

With a midwife, a doula or a chiropractor who’s experienced in Webster technique, we can offer you advice to ask the right questions to see if there might be a different pathway for you.

Click here to read the article, Advice on Building a Birth Team for a Healthier Pregnancy and Birth in its entirety on our website.

Pregnant women can find support for a healthy pregnancy in an integrative care network that can include a chiropractor, midwife, doula and birth team who work with them to help provide the best birth outcomes.

What are the benefits of having an integrative care team during pregnancy?

Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: I think it’s a really great idea. I think birthing today, especially in New York City where we’re located, is an extremely stressful time for a lot of the moms. What’s happening is the OB-GYNs, particularly with older or what they call geriatric pregnancies. And to be honest with you, most of my moms are in their mid-30s. It’s extremely rare that I get moms in their 20s. Moms in their 20s are younger, they’re fitter, they’re more prepared, they’re in their prime when they’re ready to really give birth. So, when they’re older, there’s a lot more things that the OB-GYNs start talking to their clients about, really about health and safety, and because they’re older, that they want to do things differently.

Click here to read the article, Integrative Care with Midwives, Doulas and Birth Teams in its entirety on our website.

On average, we probably take care of somewhere between 5 to 10 moms every week that are expecting, and they come in in different states and different conditions. Some moms come in very late, they’re at week 37. They’ve been told that their baby’s breech, and the moms are nervous and they’re scared. But we take them through the Webster protocol.

It doesn’t matter when the moms come in. We always start the same. We always make sure that the mom has a clear understanding of what we’re trying to do and how it’s going to improve the overall situation in the pelvic floor and allow the baby to be delivered by just relaxing some of the ligaments and muscles that surround it, making sure the sacroiliac joints are lined up. And it makes a difference, because I’ve had moms come in at 37 weeks with no hope, and we give them hope.

Click here to read the article, The Webster Technique Makes a Difference in a Pregnancy in its entirety on our website.

Chiropractors use the Webster Technique to help pregnant women have a more comfortable pregnancy and better birth outcomes.

More and more pregnant women are inquiring about the Webster technique. Could you start by explaining what the Webster technique is?

Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: Absolutely. So, years ago, Dr. Larry Webster had a daughter who was expecting, and he was a chiropractor, and he was looking at the trouble that she was having and had been curious about this and been working on the technique. He was designing this technique to experience more positive birth outcomes because people will go in the C-section when they have breech babies and things like that. What he found by combining a couple of other techniques and adding a few things on his own, that using these gentle techniques to relax the round ligament, the uterosacral ligament and align the pelvis, he was noticing that women were having better birth outcomes and seeing much less need for C-sections, particularly when they had babies that were in breech position.

Click here to read the article, The Webster Technique in its entirety on our website.

Your spine is your lifeline. It connects your body to your brain. Your brain controls everything that goes on in the body through an intricate nerve network. When your brain is giving its intelligent direction over the nerve system, the cells, tissues and organs react exactly as the brain wants them to, and it preserves life and preserves our health. When your spine is healthy you will experience more energy, more movement, and a better quality of life.

The spine is designed to protect the central nervous system and keep your posture upright. It allows your body to move. Since the spine is broken up in segments, sometimes the vertebrae can get misaligned and not go back to their proper position. When that happens, it’s called a vertebral subluxation. That misalignment will put pressure on the delicate spinal nerves that exit from in between the two adjacent vertebrae.

Click here to read the article, Reset Your Body with Chiropractic Adjustments in its entirety on our website.

A healthy, well-aligned spine plays a vital role in supporting proper body function, nervous system communication, and overall wellness.

You often describe the spine as the body’s circuit breaker. Can you explain how the spine connects to the rest of the body’s systems?

Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: Sure. The spinal cord is truly the connector, and it connects the brain, which is the master computer, to the rest of the body. Basically, the spinal cord is like the body’s information superhighway or like our internet connection, right, where all the information is stored on a server somewhere is analogous to the brain.

When you really think about it, the spine is designed to protect the central nervous system and keep your posture upright, and it allows your body to move since it’s broken up into segments. Since it’s broken up in segments, sometimes the vertebrae can get misaligned and not go back to their proper position.

Click here to read the article, Your Body’s Circuit Breaker in its entirety on our website.

Receiving chiropractic care early in life can help prevent health problems later in life. The number one health problem that can be prevented is primarily related to posture. You can prevent scoliosis from progressing to a more significant level. Scoliosis refers to lateral curves that develop in a child’s spine. If children are checked and these issues are caught early before they complete all phases of growth, while the growth plates are still open, you can have a much more profound effect. Preventing and managing scoliosis is something that is very important to have your kids checked for.

In addition to lateral curves, there are anterior-to-posterior curves, which include the curve in your neck and the curve in your lower lumbar spine. These should form a C-curve, while the thoracic curve should go in the opposite direction.

Those three curves, in the sagittal dimension, act like a shock-absorbing spring.

Click here to read the article, How Early Chiropractic Care Can Support Lifelong Health in its entirety on our website.

Chiropractic care helps to support childhood growth and development, especially the nervous system, and helps set kids up for lifelong health.

How can prenatal chiropractic care help mothers experience healthier pregnancies and support a baby’s optimal development even before birth?

Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: Wow, that’s a pretty cool question to ask. Prenatal chiropractic will help moms experience a healthier pregnancy; that’s for sure. Because when the mom is healthy and proper alignment exists through the spine, obviously she’s going to have less pain and discomfort during the pregnancy. And when the mom is in more comfort and less stress, it really affects the growing fetus because the internal environment of the mom, what’s going on on the inside affects the baby because that’s the baby’s environment.

So, if a mom is stressed, her body chemistry has more cortisol and adrenaline in it, and that creates an environment that’s not so healthy.

Click here to read the article, Creating Healthy Kids vs. Fixing Sick Adults in its entirety on our website.

There really is no single universal definition of what a high quality of life is. Generally, it would be measured by key indicators that fall into a bunch of different categories, including the individual’s own perception of their own wellbeing, how well objective factors come into their health environment, and their financial security.

The most fundamental aspect of a high quality of life is good health. Some of the key measures of good health are:

• Having good physical function
• Achieving athletic performance
• Performing the activities of daily living without limitation or pain
• Experiencing great energy levels and enough vitality to engage in our work, our hobbies and other social activities
• Getting a high quality of sleep
• Feeling well and rested
• Being free from chronic illness and debilitating diseases.

All these things could potentially diminish overall happiness and quality of life.

Click here to read the article, Key Measures of a High-Quality Life with Chiropractic Care in its entirety on our website.