Benefits and risks of Chiropractic care in pediatrics: Does your kid need to see a chiropractor?

The PedsDocTalk Podcast: Child Health, Development & Parenting—From a Pediatrician Mom

Dr. Mona Amin

Medicine, Kids & Family, Health & Fitness, Parenting

4.9 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 29 October 2025

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What happens when a chiropractor decides to go to medical school? In this conversation, I sit down with Dr. Richard Schoonmaker, a former chiropractor turned osteopathic medical student, to talk about why he made the switch, what he learned about evidence-based care, and how chiropractic and medicine can actually work together when done responsibly. What We Discuss: Why Dr. Schoonmaker left chiropractic to pursue medicine The difference between chiropractic and osteopathic training How to spot red flags in online chiropractic content The truth about chiropractic care for babies and kids What evidence-based, collaborative care could look like How modern medicine can build trust by listening better To connect with Richard Schoonmaker follow him on Instagram at @richs_oms2 and TikTok at @rich_oms2. We’d like to know who is listening! Please fill out our Listener Survey to help us improve the show and learn about you! 00:00 – Intro 02:00 – Meet Dr. Richard Schoonmaker 03:00 – From Chiropractic to Medicine 07:15 – What He Took From Chiropractic Into Medicine 08:15 – Evidence-Based Chiropractic vs. Online Myths 10:00 – Why Some Chiropractors Go Viral (and Off the Rails) 16:00 – How Chiropractors Are Trained (and Where Gaps Exist) 21:20 – The Lack of Oversight in Pediatric Chiropractic Care 24:00 – The Supportive (Not Substitutive) Role of Chiropractic 28:30 – Common Reasons Parents Seek Chiropractic Care for Kids 33:10 – What the Research Actually Supports 36:30 – Understanding OMM in Osteopathic Medicine 40:00 – Why Context Matters: Symptom Relief vs. Causation 43:00 – The True Meaning of Holistic Care 45:00 – Calling Out Misinformation Responsibly 48:00 – The Real Reason Patients Seek Alternative Care 49:40 – Building a Better Relationship Between Chiropractors and Physicians 51:45 – How Parents Can Find a Safe, Evidence-Based Chiropractor 54:50 – Final Thoughts and Where to Find Richard Our podcasts are also now on YouTube. If you prefer a video podcast with closed captioning, check us out there and ⁠subscribe to PedsDocTalk⁠. Get trusted pediatric advice, relatable parenting insights, and evidence-based tips delivered straight to your inbox—join thousands of parents who rely on the PDT newsletter to stay informed, supported, and confident. ⁠⁠⁠⁠Join the newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠! And don’t forget to follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠@pedsdoctalkpodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠ on Instagram—our new space just for parents looking for real talk and real support. We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on the ⁠PedsDocTalk Podcast Sponsorships⁠ page of the website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Manual therapy itself. Evidence is not strong in pediatric populations. There is some low to moderate grade evidence for very specific conditions. But for the more, I'll say, like, systemic or even visceral types of conditions, whether it is like more developmental delays, developmental conditions, if it has to do with
0:24.1	colic or things like that.
0:27.1	In my opinion, little to know evidence for those.
0:36.1	Welcome back to the Peds Dog Talk podcast. I'm Dr. Mona, your friendly neighborhood pediatrician,
0:41.4	an osteopathic physician. Many of you may not know that I'm a DO or osteopathic doctor,
0:46.3	and that's different from an MD. Maybe another podcast episode can dive deeper into the differences.
0:51.4	But if you didn't know, osteopathic medicine and chiropractic care actually
0:55.7	share a few things in common. We both look at the body as a whole and understand how structure
1:00.3	and function are connected. In osteopathic medical school, we learned something called OMM,
1:05.1	osteopathic manipulative medicine. It's hands-on care that helps the body heal itself
1:10.0	through techniques like gentle stretching,
1:12.4	mobilization, or muscle energy work. It's somewhat similar to chiropractic adjustments, but here's the
1:18.7	key difference. OMMMM is taught within the full scope of medical training grounded in anatomy,
1:23.7	physiology, and evidence-based practice. We learn when to use it, and just as importantly,
1:29.2	when not to. And that's why I wanted to have this conversation today, because while there are
1:34.3	incredible chiropractors out there who stay in their lane and truly help people, I was one of them.
1:40.1	During pregnancy, I had awful sacral pain and seeing a chiropractor help me so much.
1:47.6	It's often not those practitioners who go viral.
1:53.2	It's the ones online doing high-velocity cracks on children's necks, selling gimmicks,
1:59.0	spreading vaccine misinformation, or claiming they can adjust away autism or ADHD that gets the clicks.
2:00.2	And that's not fair to the chiropractors who are
2:02.1	actually helping people responsibly. So today we're getting honest about it all with someone
	...

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