Doctors raise alarm over TikToks showing babies at the chiropractor

Desparate parents will sometimes take their baby to the chiropractor, but many doctors say it's a unproven method of care for infants.

Pediatricians are sounding the alarm in response to hundreds of videos that have been shared to social media showing infants and babies being physically manipulated by chiropractors in an effort to soothe symptoms of colic, constipation and other discomfort.

The chiropractors uploading these videos, mostly to TikTok, insist that their methods are safe and gentle, but doctors say the treatments could be risky — especially in the wrong hands.

“Ultimately, there is no way you’re going to get an improvement in a newborn from a manipulation,” Sean Tabaie, an orthopedic surgeon at Children’s National Hospital in D.C., told The Washington Post. “The only thing that you might possibly cause is harm.”

One TikTok, uploaded by bodybuilder Kevin Clevenger, shows a chiropractor dangling a baby upside down by her legs. Viewers can hear pops as her back and neck are gently cracked, and she stays calm the whole time.

Clevenger told BuzzFeed News that his daughter was “less fussy and a lot happier” after the visit and she’s been seeing a chiropractor once a month, since.

Dr. Lindsay Pelley, a chiropractor in Oregon specializing in pediatrics, told the outlet that while adults can be nervous about chiropractic care because the adjustments seem “a little aggressive,” a visit to a specialized pediatric chiropractor comes with “minimal risk.”

“It’s a very gentle, conservative way to improve the baby and most likely mom’s quality of life with minimal intervention,” she said, adding that baby manipulations usually use only enough pressure “to bruise a tomato.”