This Halloween my wife and I welcomed our daughter into the world, Jovie Pearl Bush. An 8 lb 3 oz reminder of how beautiful life can be and how much different ours is from here on out. Adjustment is a word that comes to mind a lot when I think about the last 6 weeks.

The adjustment to our lives started long before she got here. Over the span of 40 weeks I watched as my wife began to feel more and more change, both physical and emotional. I heard a good analogy: a baby is like growing a 7-10 lb. kettle bell in your belly, giving birth to it, then carrying it around as it gets heavier over the next several years as it grows. Like many have experienced during pregnancy, just about every aspect of your life is affected. For my wife, we looked to chiropractic and preventative measures to keep her comfortable and her body better equipped to adapt to all the new stresses.

After Jovie was born, the life adjustments accelerated. Not only did we have to take care of ourselves, but also a completely dependent newborn baby. This continues to mean adapting to less sleep, remembering to maintain the perfect position to keep Jovie comfortable...even if it means sacrificing our own comfort, and constantly looking down in adoration or concern. Since becoming a chiropractor, headaches, neck and back pain, and wrist pain have been common areas of complaints from my patients who are new parents, both moms and dads. Now, standing in their shoes, I feel like I really understand. Tension and imbalances begin to build (sometimes quietly and sometimes not so much) from our repetitive lifting, spine postures, and not to mention the bowling ball we are carrying around on one side for most of the day. All this to say, there are a lot of physical and emotional stressors that play a role in exposing where our body might not be working the best.

 Outside of the physical stress of the pregnancy and childbirth process, there are a host of emotional shifts as well. With all the joy and life shaking moments that come along with your little one there is a counterbalance of uncertainty, more fatigue, and a sense of feeling overwhelmed. Our emotional state has an impact on our physical body. Our brain processes stress in the same area where it processes pain, the prefrontal cortex. Pain and emotional stressors are often tied together on a neurological level. Not only that, but how we feel internally has an impact on how we move, hold ourselves, and take care of our bodies externally.

Little Jovie has been through quite a bit herself! She took her time coming into the world and it was not an easy journey. While nothing about the birth process is easy, it was a front seat view to the incredible ability of both momma and baby to adapt and endure the experience. As a chiropractor, I am fortunate to be aware of the benefits of having our baby’s body checked by Dr. Block for her first adjustment at 2 weeks old. If I wasn’t aware of how gentle it is, I could see where someone would think having a baby adjusted is a scary thing. In fact, we usually describe the pressure as what you could tolerate pushing on your own eye with your finger. We have been so satisfied so far, and have found it to be so helpful in getting Jovie accommodated to her new body!

There is nothing that can quite describe the feeling of seeing our first child, and seeing the world from a whole new perspective as she gains a perspective of her own. We have been through what all new parents experience, a major life change that affects so many aspects of our lives as we know them. As a family, we have been so thankful to have chiropractic on our side along the way to help us adjust to all of our new adjustments.

Dr. Conrad Bush is a graduate of Palmer College of Chiropractic. He has special interests in weight loss, biomechanics, extremities, and sports rehab. He is certified in Active Release Technique, which focuses on treating the soft tissue system of the body.