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In Australia, their own regulators have banned chiropractors — temporarily at least — from manipulating the spines of babies after viral videos of a chiropractor dangling a newborn by its heels and applying spinal and skull pressure sparked a public uproar.

In Canada, however, chiropractors are only expanding their practices into pediatrics, planning upcoming weekend introductory courses on the “essentials” of adjusting newborns and children.

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Most babies need adjusting to unblock nervous system “interference” caused by the trauma of passing through the birth canal, according to conference instructors.

Attendees will be practising on baby dolls. “Any type of baby doll, other than Barbie (too small) or Cabbage Patch Kid (no neck) is acceptable,” according to the conference website. Mon Bébé is the preferred choice.

The two-day, 12-hour courses — scheduled for Toronto in July, and Ottawa in November — are drawing fresh alarm from medical doctors and consumer health advocates, who say the notion that newborns need adjusting for misaligned vertebrae within days, or even hours, after birth is scaremongering and that no reliable scientific evidence exists to support the practice.