Dr. Gregg Rubinstein and the team at 57th Street Chiropractic have established themselves as a highly rated chiropractic practice in New York City specializing in prenatal and pediatric chiropractic care in addition to other proven techniques with great patient outcomes.
Could you please start by describing how your chiropractic care plan for pregnant women works so well and has such good patient outcomes?
Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: Wow. Let’s see. So, my chiropractic care plan for pregnant women, I want to be very honest with you. I stand on the shoulders of giants. I didn’t come up with any of these techniques. These techniques were taught and handed down to me from the chiropractors who came before. We use primarily the Webster technique. The Webster technique was designed by Larry Webster who had a daughter who was having a very difficult pregnancy and he was kind of experimenting with some of his technique and found that when he worked specifically with a lumbopelvic protocol, that he was able to cause a lot of relaxation in the round ligaments and in the uteral sacral ligaments, the ligaments that support the baby and suspend the baby like a hot air balloon inside the womb. And when he did this, he found that the babies were actually more likely to get into a head down position because he was preventing urine constraint by actually relaxing a lot of the musculature and the pelvic girdle.
So, he kept working on that and then started seeing more and more expecting moms and really developed a technique. So, I wouldn’t exactly call it my care plan, I’m just carrying on the work of Larry Webster who did all the work in the beginning and he saw a 95% success rate and got awesome outcomes. I’ve been tracking my success and we’re right up there with him about 87 to 90% of the time when people present looking for Webster technique, we almost always get positive outcomes and it’s very gentle and very safe. Again, it’s not my chiropractic care plan, it’s very cookie cutter. Larry Webster was very, very sincere about making sure that you didn’t vary the technique.
I would almost say that it’s cookie cutter and it starts off with a couple of sessions a week, usually twice a week for about four to five weeks, and then generally ends up as once a week until you deliver. And as long as you’re consistent with the care, we almost always get great outcomes. So again, not my chiropractic care plan, but the care plans designed by the ICPA, which is the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association, and I have my certification through them. I’ve also done a lot of extra hours in pediatric maternity and family care.
A neonatal care examination is another specialized treatment you offer. Could you describe what a neonatal care exam is and what a treatment plan would be like for an infant?
Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: One of the cool things in chiropractic is that caring for an infant, other than the technique selection, isn’t all that different, especially when you look at the primary reasons. The baby’s nerve system is run and regulated by this intelligence. When the sperm and egg come together, all the information to build this perfect baby in 280 to 290 days is there, and then this intelligent design just takes over and it starts building the baby. And then every baby, no matter what it’s born as, a dog, a cat, or a fly or a mosquito, it doesn’t matter what you are, the first thing that forms in any living creature is always going to be the nerve system because your nerve system is a conduit for that intelligence that puts everything together. And as long as that information can communicate with the rest of the body, this baby gets built the exact right way at the exact right time.
So, when the baby’s born, what we’re looking at is the function and the neurology of that child. Are all the reflexes present? Are the reflexes that are supposed to go away, these primitive reflexes, going away over time? We look at the baby’s posture. We look at the range of motion. We check for plagiocephaly of those flat spots. If the baby’s not moving its head properly in bed and it lays only on one side and never turns the other, we’re going to see these flat spots. So, we look at that. We look at the baby’s tracking and following with the eyes. So, at every stage of neurology development, we’re monitoring that to make sure everything is going as planned. Is the baby walking? Is the baby rooting? Is he latching on and getting good suction? We look at these things, we’ll check and make sure that there’s no tongue tie.
There’s a complete examination to really look at the neurology of the child and making sure that they’re functioning on, or close to 100%. Every stage of growth and development in a child, whether infant or older child, is listed by all these development markers. And every stage of growth and development is controlled by the nerve system. So, making sure that those nerves are free from interference and there’s no pressure on any of those delicate spinal nerves, that’s what’s going to allow the baby to grow and develop 100% to its optimal potential. And that’s really what chiropractic is, making sure that there’s great function in the nerve system. So, every stage of growth and development goes off without a hitch, without interference, and that baby lives up to its ultimate potential.
Can you describe the upper cervical technique that your practice uses to provide headache relief and other benefits to your patients?
Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: Great. Well, upper cervical technique isn’t just for headaches. Upper cervical technique is one technique that we employ in our chiropractic practice. Now, since we look at the upper cervical, right at the very top of the spine sits the skull with the brain and then through the skull there’s a giant hole called the foramen magnum, which is Latin for big hole. Coming through that cord right off the brain right off the brain stem is the spinal cord. Every nerve in your body passes through the ring of Atlas. Atlas is called Atlas because he supports your globe. It’s the first cervical vertebrae. It’s also the most freely movable vertebrae, therefore the most likely to subluxate or misalign.
And when I look at the neurology surrounding the Atlas, the top cervical bone, there is so much neurology there, the vagus nerve comes out of there, all the cranial nerves come right off the brain stem, which is just a couple of centimeters above that. And then every nerve going down to the lower body also passes through that ring. So, I don’t care how clear the lower spine might be, if you don’t check the upper cervical and make sure that’s clear, you’re really doing the patient a disservice. So, when we look at that, we want to make sure that we’re keeping that spot clear and there’s no pressure or interference up top. As a matter of fact, the Atlas is the bone that Christopher Reeves broke. Many people remember him, he played Superman in the movies. When he had a lot of pressure surrounding the Atlas, his quality of life was very poor. He couldn’t walk, he couldn’t breathe on his own. I’m not saying that Atlas subluxation corrected on him would’ve helped him, he actually fractured that vertebrae. But it gives a clear picture of what happens when you put pressure on the spine and nerve system in that area.
Now people like me and you, we have a thousand times less interference than old Chris Reeves had. But it is so important to make sure that the upper cervical spine is clear because when you look at Atlas in the circuit breaker of life, that is certainly the main because there’s so much neurology there. And in chiropractic, everyone thinks that we’re back doctors. We just use the spine as our avenue of approach. But what we’re really trying to affect is the nerve system. So, when we look at upper cervical care, we always want to make sure that’s clear because it is the most important area, and the most neurology passes through that area.
Could you please explain why it’s so important for your practice to focus on injury prevention and proper spine care for your patients who are dancers, gymnasts, and other athletes?
Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: Well, it’s important to focus on injury prevention on anybody, right? Because if you’re 75 years old and you take a fall, well, that’s going to be a pretty catastrophic thing and it’s going to have a much greater effect. When an infant falls, they tend to bounce and not break. A 75-year-old falls, well, they’re more likely to break than bounce, but the little infant, if they fall and they bounce, that can still knock bones out of alignment or create subluxations. So, it’s important to watch and look at the spine of an infant as they grow up through every stage of growth and development like I always say, because those misalignments will affect the neurology. And if you ever watch the baby learn to a walk, how many times a day do they fall? 10, 20, 30 times? It’s incredible. So, these kids are just athletes in training anyway. And then we look at a lot of these moms, and they take these two, three, and four-year-old kids and they put them in ballet class or they send them to gymnastics. These kids are putting stresses on the spine and that spine hasn’t had a chance to fully develop.
So, we’ll see something called the spondylolisthesis. It is very common in gymnasts that start training and tumbling very early in life. Dancers in ballet, they’re centering, they’re pushing for flexibility. And again, when the spine isn’t fully developed, that can have long-term effects. And they grow up with spines that are like hyper flexible or hypermobile. And that can lead to alignment problems later with dancers. And look, every kid’s an athlete, what level of athletics they go for, what they enjoy are different. Whether you’re a runner or you play football. Again, when the spine is in good alignment and more flexible, it’s more resilient and it’s less likely to get injured from impacts and falls. When something’s very rigid and stiff, if you drop it or fall, it’s more likely to break.
So, keeping the spine flexible and mobile is huge in making sure that you mitigate the amount of force that gets introduced to the spine and what misalignments can occur from that. It doesn’t matter if you’re a dancer or a gymnast or a football player or lacrosse player, getting your spine checked often will help ensure that the neurology is working properly and everything’s in the best alignment. And remember, when you look at all these professional athletes, a lot of them will use chiropractic to enhance performance. They will get adjusted before they take the field to make sure that they’re performing at their best. Because again, a clear spine with clear neurology is like running a computer on a DSL or a T-1 line, not that cruddy dial-up stuff we used to deal with 20, 30 years ago.
You have been in practice for over 30 years. Why do you think your chiropractic practice has had such a great reputation among all the chiropractic clinics in New York City?
Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: Wow, I get to toot my own horn here, huh?
RC: Absolutely.
Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: Well, I think some of the things that provide us with a great reputation, first of all, is we have 33 years of experience. I’ve done hundreds of hours in extra course work. I have a Webster certification through the ICPA. Most of my extra course work has been in pediatric maternity and family care and that’s the portion of our practice that we really push. It’s very unique in that there aren’t a ton of people who do the same work in New York City.
I think people get good outcomes and enjoy their experience primarily because I have an awesome staff. The people who run my front desk do the best job. They’re the nicest people on the planet. And it’s interesting because if you call our office to try and make an appointment with me, you don’t know anything about me until you get through my front desk staff. They’re trained super well, and they’re nicest caring people and they understand chiropractic. And so, when they call up, one of the first things I always hear when people come in is like, “Your staff are so lovely.” And I take pride in that because I did help train them. But at the core, they’re just the nicest people on the planet. When they make the office look good, it really makes me look good and it just enhances the overall patient experience.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud of the work that I’ve done and the progress I’ve made as a chiropractor because I’m a much better chiropractor today than I was 33 years ago. I think the important thing in the practice is that I say what I mean, I mean what I say. I’m not afraid to tell people the truth because some people need to hear that they need long-term care, whether it costs a lot of time, energy, and money or not, it’s important that they understand that because if you build a care plan too small and they don’t get results, they’re never going to come back to you and they’re not going to speak highly of your office.
If you take a look at a lot of our reviews out there, we get a lot of great reviews and they say it all because people are pleased with the results. And look, I’m not saying that there’s not some reviews out there that aren’t so stellar, and I’m sure we’ve made mistakes and people have had less than a stellar experience in our office, but you look at the pile of those reviews and the general consensus is it’s a pretty positive experience and people are getting a lot of help in our office. And I think that’s really what it is and why we have a great reputation and we just keep striving for excellence in the office.
Learn More
To speak with Dr. Gregg Rubinstein, visit www.ChiropractorMidtown.com or call (212) 977-7094 to schedule an appointment.
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