Care Scaled to the Patient in Front of Us
For infants and children, care is gentle and non-invasive. That is not a softer version of adult adjusting — it is a different technique set, using very light pressure, chosen for a spine that is still developing. Parents are often surprised by how little force is involved; the amount of pressure used on an infant is comparable to what you would use to check a ripe tomato.
Dr. Christopher Ernst holds an advanced certification in chiropractic pediatrics. If you are unsure whether care is appropriate for your child, call us and we will talk it through before you book — and if we do not think chiropractic is the right answer for what you are describing, we will say so.
What Parents Usually Ask About
- Posture — the backpack-and-screens combination is doing to children what desk work does to adults, only earlier.
- Sports and activity — young athletes pick up the same mechanical problems adults do, in bodies that are still growing. See our sports injury page.
- Falls and knocks — the ordinary tumbles of childhood, when something does not seem to have settled afterwards.
- Growing bodies — periods of rapid growth change how a young spine handles load, and complaints often cluster there.
Family Care Under One Roof
Most families do not arrive as a family. One person comes in for their own back, and over time a partner, a teenager or a grandparent follows. Because the practice sees adults, athletes, expectant mothers and children, appointments can usually be arranged together rather than scattered across a week — which for most parents is the difference between care that happens and care that gets postponed.
Expecting, or recently postpartum? Prenatal chiropractic care is covered on its own page.
Your First Visit
The first appointment is a comprehensive new-patient exam — history, movement and orthopaedic testing, and digital X-rays on site if needed — for $29, regular fee $189. The $29 exam applies to children as well as adults. Imaging is only ever taken if the examination indicates it; with children, that bar is higher, not lower.
Dr. Ernst explains what he found in plain language, to you and to your child, before anything is recommended. Nobody is asked to commit to a plan at the first visit.