From Womb to World: Understanding Developmental Stages with Dr. Laura Hanson

Restore the Real" is a podcast that's not just about health—it's a journey into the complexities and beauty of human development and survival. Hosted by Dr. Randy Michaux of Total Body Wellness Clinic, each episode promises to delve deep into the nuances of health and wellness, both mind and body. In a particularly compelling episode, Dr. Randy welcomes Dr. Laura Hanson, a neurodevelopmental therapist and certified autism specialist. Dr. Laura has dedicated her life to understanding the intricacies of primitive reflexes and the wiring of the human nervous system, focusing on how these early developmental stages impact not just children but adults too.

Listeners can expect to be enlightened about the critical role of primitive reflexes, which begin in utero and lay the foundation for neurological development. The podcast explores how disruptions in these reflexes can lead to various challenges in children and adults, from ADHD and anxiety to difficulty adapting to new situations. The conversation also touches on environmental factors, including stress and toxicity, and their significant impact on these developmental processes.

"Restore the Real" invites listeners of all ages to understand how early development affects our lifelong health and behavior. Whether you're a parent concerned about your child's development, an adult facing neurological challenges, or simply intrigued by the human body's incredible capabilities, this episode offers invaluable insights. Subscribe to "Restore the Real" on your favorite podcast platform and join Dr. Randy and his guests on this enlightening journey. Share your experiences and insights with the community after tuning in!

Connect with Dr Laura Hanson:
Instagram - drlaurahanson
Website - www.connectmybrain.com

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

It's time for real discussions about health. Hi, I'm Dr Randy Michaud of Total Body Wellness Clinic and each week on Restore the Real, I'll sit down with the guests to discuss how developing or overcoming health challenges has shaped the way that they live their lives, what they've learned, what they've changed and how they're moving forward. Restore the Real is a podcast that is unafraid and unapologetic when it comes to getting honest about the nuances of health and wellness Mind, body and spirit. Hey, everybody, welcome to Restore the Real. So excited to be with you today, and I have a very special guest, dr Laura Hansen. I'm going to introduce her first and then tell some things personally that I know from my time at Palmer Florida.

Speaker 1: 0:57

So Dr Laura has dedicated her professional life to helping children. She has deepened her understanding and furthered her credentials by becoming a neurodevelopmental therapist. She is a certified autism specialist focusing on primitive reflexes and the wiring of the human nervous system, and we're going to take a deep dive into that. She has many other credentials as well and is just a wonderful person. On a personal note, she was one of my professors when I was at Palmer College of Chiropractic in Florida and she helped my wife through the pregnancy of our second child and did a lot of work with us in pediatrics there at Palmer, and it was just fascinating to see how these developmental stages were critical, not just as a kid but as an adult, and how things show up. And then just we just had some great experiences with her in school and she's a wonderful human being and I'm so excited that I get to have her on the podcast today. So, dr Laura, thank you for being here.

Speaker 2: 2:05

Oh, randy, thank you. Dr Randy, thank you so much for having me. I love making these connections, and anytime we can get this information out there, somebody's going to benefit, so that's always a positive.

Speaker 1: 2:20

Absolutely so. For those of you that are listening, please like and share, because this just won't apply to kids, but this is going to apply to all ages and our topic today. So do you know people or do you struggle with anxiety, ocd, have children that struggle with that or that have ADHD? These things can be environmental and they can start as early as four to six weeks in utero if these reflexes don't integrate. So we're going to take a deep dive into primitive reflexes and what they are. So would you first explain or tell us what are these primitive reflexes, what are they and maybe some examples of what they do or how they help support the baby in utero?

Speaker 2: 3:18

So things have to happen in utero so that the baby is actually ready to come into the world. So there is so much neurological development while that baby is in the world. Now, when you come into the world, you are fully formed, but you are not fully functioning, so you're not done. But there has to be a hard wire, and so this is even before we get into sensory motor, and there is so much about sensory motor diagnoses. But there is a completely different sequence of events that are going on priming sensory motor, and that is our reflex system. What we know is that there's typically three different time frames of reflexes. There are the withdrawal reflexes, then we go through transition. That is a word that we want to underline.

Speaker 2: 4:21

It's very important that we transition into primitive and then, when we are born, and we all get very excited that that little baby is lifting their head, those are now the igniting of the pastoral reflexes. But this is in preparation of the baby being able to do what it needs to do once it gets into the world. So they each have a very unique event that they're responsible for, and there's lots of that. So it's not just like one in withdrawal, one in primitive and one in pastoral.

Speaker 2: 5:03

It is a network, and that part is what's important for us to understand, because that is laying down the foundation in our brain, which is a giant circuit of events. So there's all kinds of hubs and modules inside of our brain, but every step that we go through in the progression of development is responsible all the way back at the beginning in the world. And there's also another part that I think we should tie into this, and we can add this one in a minute, but it's the pruning of the brain. So we are constantly building neurons. This is why they ask mommies, hey, do you feel that baby moving, that baby needs to be doing that movement inside of the womb? And the movement that they're doing are the primitive reflexes.

Speaker 1: 6:00

It's so fascinating that how we think of supercomputers and AI and how amazing that is, but this network of this nervous system and neurology in the body is just fascinating and complex.

Speaker 1: 6:16

And I remember in school that you would talk about the importance of the actual birth process and I don't want to go there yet because of how that would stimulate certain reflexes. With these reflexes, I hear you talk about moro a lot and there's something about that one that is specific and maybe if we could talk on a couple of these, withdrawal reflex really stuck out to me a lot and then moro did a lot to me as well, as I listened to older podcasts because I'll have patients that will say things like I can never calm down Meaning. I'm always at this state of alert. If a door shuts, a pencil drops, something happens and all of a sudden I'm tense. But it's all the time and I'm curious with these reflexes, those two specifically. What is their purpose? And then the integration process. And if that doesn't happen, how can that translate into like a baby or a child in school or an adult?

Speaker 2: 7:25

So I'm so glad that you brought up the withdrawal reflexes, because those are the first ones and this is actually priming the nervous system to know how to handle a threat. So the baby's in the womb, what's in the womb? Amniotic fluid and the baby. In fact, national Geographic has actually filmed the withdrawal reflex in the womb and the baby's thumb is coming towards its mouth and the baby pulls away. So this set of reflexes is actually priming the body for the light touch pathway, in order for it to know if something is potentially going to be a threat, so that we know how to get away from it. So this is about survivability and so if we keep this reflex, we don't go towards, and so the nervous system is known to either go towards or go away, and so that beginning of those interactions are starting to get wired while you are in the womb. So this reflex, as all the reflexes, are going to lay something down in the neurology and then it's meant to grow up. So what is a grown up withdrawal reflex look like? So let's say I'm cooking and I skim my arm on a hot pot. I don't sit there and go wow, my flesh is burning. I pull my arm away without even thinking about it. If I were to step on something I'd recoil right off of it. So there's an immature form and then there is a mature form, now for the individual, where this did not integrate correctly, and first we'll focus on it as it relates to children. But this is the child and it is kind of like that patient you described. They're always on edge. So wonder if that adult patient has kind of been that way their whole life because they didn't know that this was actually what was going on. But this creates a lot of distraction. Your special senses, your eyes, your ears, your smell, taste, touch, that is your electrical energy or your electrical information to the brain. So when this reflex stays firing, anything that comes in from like a window, you're going to be drawn towards it. Anybody drop it a pencil, you're going to look to see what it is. It's as if all the hair on your body is constantly up and on alert, because this is a defense system. So the nervous system first is primed for survival and to know that it can handle a threat. Then we do. We go through this transition and the first primitive reflex is the moro reflex, and yes, I've always talked about how it's the enchilada of all reflexes. It has so many things to it, but I asked you to keep that word transition underline, okay, because that is one of the biggest triggers. So you'll hear parents say my kid does not make transition easily. It's hard for them to go from one thing to the other because they've gotten themselves so involved in a rigid way of holding themselves together. They don't make a good transition.

Speaker 2: 11:11

Moro activates three things in the neurology arousal, co2o2 reflex and the sympathetic nervous system. Arousal is the rhythmicity of the baby waking up and going to sleep. It is also how we're going to go through a developmental window to learn how to pay attention. I have never met a child or an adult that has ADHD that doesn't also have a either under aroused or over aroused moro and you can have either or Now CO2 reflex, and we can pull these apart in just a minute.

Speaker 2: 11:55

But that CO2 reflex remember I told you these are life preserving. These are way before Excuse me, these are way before sensory motor. So when that little baby is sleeping, if it's not getting the alert, hey, you need to wake up, become aroused, wake up. That could mean that CO2 is climbing inside of their body. When you do illicit a moro response. There is a quick opening of the body and a quick inhale to pull oxygen in. So these are very physiological and they are chemically based as well. But that could also be the child who that CO2 climbs and this, unfortunately, could become a situation known as SIDS sudden infant syndrome and then your sympathetic nervous system that is coming on board with this particular reflex.

Speaker 2: 12:59

But it's been primed either withdrawal reflexes to even know how to turn on. So in these under aroused states this is sometimes people that are kind of locked into fear, paralysis, because they didn't make a good transition, Sympathetics really didn't kick on. They're staying stuck back over here in the withdrawal response and that just kind of locks them in and they become very fearful really over anything. I had an adult patient once that I was sure she had this and my office is a tri-level house and I had her downstairs at the four year and I go okay, I'm going to kind of get into your space. She almost fell down the stairs because she pulled away so quickly. So you can see these reactions even in adults.

Speaker 1: 14:01

Yeah. So you said something a few minutes ago that was fascinating to me and it was unrelated to a child, and I'm thinking of a kid in school that has not transitioned through this reflex, still as maybe a first grader, second grader, even maybe fifth, sixth grader, and they're like in school, taking a test, doing work, and yet they're looking everywhere because they have this noise. So if they haven't progressed through and haven't transitioned, what I hear you saying is that this could look like a distracted kid in school that then gets labeled as Something or is called. You know, long time ago they would have been you're just you're dumb Then we don't say that now anymore.

Speaker 1: 14:49

But I could see that kid being labeled and the parents like man, what's wrong with my kid? Why don't they listen? Why don't do the? They do this, and if they don't have this information, then they go down the path of meds, which are not going to impact and not going to help that problem, but probably just Drive it in more. But that's fascinating, that that first reflex, if it's not transitioned through, could create massive complications for a child. And then you know, you think, well, how well did you do in elementary school? Hi, and then now that plays a role in well, where, where you viewed out as an individual, as a person, is. Am I right in in in saying that?

Speaker 2: 15:32

one of my greatest parts of my passion in doing this, because Kids do get labeled and then that label sticks with them right.

Speaker 2: 15:43

And no matter what. Now they're considered oh he's got this behavior. Can't stand that word, because this is where we're lacking in our health care system as being able to assess our Children for their developmental progression, and that is so important. And then you bring up the meds. I am not anti meds, but I can tell you the majority of meds that are used with children when it comes to trying to control their behavior have not been tested on anybody under the age of 18, and what they're learning now is that it's changing the communication down at the synapse. And now, over the decades of this way of Managing things, we've now come to learn that even if they come off of it, the synapse is not coming back on as expected. And now we've got a host of late 20s, early 30s that they have terrible memory problems. This is becoming a real issue.

Speaker 1: 16:53

Hmm, I mean in that that, just I think. I think of the, the emotional state of a person. Where are they spiritually, emotionally, and how much this would impact and how much this does impact Individuals. We're not talking about theory. This is things that are happening. I see this in and and people that I know in Patience. I've seen this in myself to some degree my kids and Is so essential to know. So, again, I'm grateful that you're on here sharing these things, because Once a label gets on there I think I heard you say this in one of your podcasts once a label or a diagnosis is on there, you don't get that taken off and that can impact your entire life of what you want and hope to do.

Speaker 2: 17:40

These are all under a mental illness Canopy right. So in the DSM diagnostic statistical manual, in order for people to use their insurance, insurances and and get services, there has to be Diagnosis is within that manual. And so all of these that we see on our children today Attention issues, dyslexia, ocd, any kind of behavior, it's all funneled in there. You, if your child does get diagnosed with that, you must go back to somebody of equal caliber and Then they can reassess your child.

Speaker 1: 18:24

But you know, I've been in this now for 28 years and the likelihood of somebody Actually changing the diagnosis does not happen quite easily right If we so, if we go back into the reflexes and and how essential these are for the sympathetic nervous system, as you said, for CO2 to assess essentially danger to keep us alive, how would that? What are some things that will impact the integration and the transition from reflex to reflex? Yeah, what are those things that impact?

Speaker 2: 19:02

Well, the state of health that we're all in when we conceive a baby is essential.

Speaker 1: 19:07

So from conception, we're not even talking about. Baby hasn't even been born yet we're at conception.

Speaker 2: 19:13

Bruce Lipton used to talk about this all the time that whatever's been going on in your immediate life like two weeks, maybe a month, and I think that's more really on the emotional part but your state of health at conception.

Speaker 2: 19:34

What really got me into this was I love to read research articles and so I was trying to figure out what is research saying about the number of kids that are really going down this direction, because in the 80s it was the explosion of autism. So this piece of research that I read it talked about that if you were over the age of 30 at that time and this is research back from the 80s that you were more likely to get an adult onset diagnosis of autoimmune diabetes, depression, obesity and cancer. If you were under the age of 30 and had any kind of preexisting condition during that pregnancy, you were more likely not to get wired up correctly. Well, that's huge. So that tells us that the state of health that we are in plays an enormous part in the outcome of that pregnancy. Then stress and we kind of use that word like pulling a tissue out of a tissue bottle- Right.

Speaker 2: 20:51

It is a real physiological event. If we are in chronic stress, we're changing blood flow in our brain, blood flow in our gut and if it's chronic, we're changing real estate in our brain. If you're pregnant and you're going through stress, you can rob cortisol from your baby through the umbilical cord and now you've put your baby in a stress response. And if that baby is in a stress response, we're just starting a hamster wheel into that life of that little baby. I can remember this woman came to see me. She had had a miscarriage and I do a lot of neurofeedback and biofeedback as well and I actually did a stress response test on her and I was like I know you want to get pregnant, but you're not in the right place right now to get pregnant. Let's work on you so that you have a greater opportunity.

Speaker 2: 21:52

I tell dads all the time your wife is a queen. While she's pregnant you need to love her and protect her. And if a woman goes through a pregnancy and it's not the right time for her, she's struggling emotionally. All of those things play a huge part. When they looked at this research from the 80s, they said the greatest influence of stress on a pregnant mother was suffering a loss. That's what they had looked at in all the cases. What did the histories correlate? Well, a loss is not just somebody passing away. A loss is the white picket fence.

Speaker 2: 22:38

A loss is a job, the loss is my body. I mean there can be all kinds of losses.

Speaker 1: 22:47

Right, I was gonna say that that the loss could be. I didn't want to be pregnant. Yes, exactly, and I hate what it's doing to my body, or I mean, there's so many that goes into so many things. It could be anything if that's strong enough, or I wonder, is there like a stress response, a threshold? Or we probably don't know, because it's how it's perceived. Right, it's what the perception of that person is.

Speaker 2: 23:15

Individual. Now, you know, sure, you could definitely do some kind of research and measure cortisol levels all the time and see that, but our healthcare system is just not set up for them.

Speaker 1: 23:35

And we're not gonna get rid of stress, but I think these chronic, prolonged stresses and maybe even if they're just short, even very intense stresses, that can have an impact on the integration of these right, yes, everything.

Speaker 2: 23:53

And then you also got the actual birth process that's going on and what goes on during that birth process. So, unfortunately, when people are having any kind of issue and say, you know, I don't wanna go through the birth process, and they decide to have a C-section not because of a medical reason, so we can have a need for a medical intervention like that, again, we're never trying to make everybody feel bad and think that every single time that something terrible is going to happen, but most of the time they're going to take these babies early and when they take the baby, even two weeks early, it literally is involved or it's interrupting the further development of the lungs, and that's oxygen.

Speaker 1: 24:48

Seeing that personally.

Speaker 2: 24:49

CO2O2, right, and so we could be inducing a problem Potosin inducing a labor delivery process.

Speaker 2: 25:02

Potosin is synthetic oxytocin and the neural hypofysyl stem, which is part of the endocrine system in the brain, is very sensitive to the level of oxytocin available.

Speaker 2: 25:18

So we could be using a synthetic oxytocin and changing the endocrine response inside of that baby's brain. And then sometimes what they're doing with Potosin and then interrupting the natural contraction with myceti these babies are getting stuck, the heart rate goes down and then the next thing you know, they're doing a C-section, because they've also given her an epidural to try to make it, to help her relax, and those two counter each other and nine times out of 10, it ends up in a C-section. It could be instrumentation. Somebody could use forceps to pull that baby out, and that can have all kinds of damage to that baby. So the environment plays a big part on how I'm coming into the world, and then maybe we're gonna start taking a baby and putting vaccines into their body prematurely, before they even have an immune system. I will watch what I say as far as what's going on today, because I don't want your pot-sensor but, with the target of children.

Speaker 2: 26:36

Today I can tell you there have been incredible problems for our little ones that are going down this current situation with everything that's been going on. So there's all kinds of disruptions. And even if we were to talk about how we're feeding that baby, if we're giving that baby formula, formula is like let's take all the vitamins that anybody could ever need, compress them into a powder, maybe throw some tap water on it and put it in a microwave. You have just created an inflammatory storm inside that baby's gut. Your gut is going to mature over the first two years of life. The immune system is the first three. So insult, insult, insult. Eventually that bucket's gonna get very full and it's gonna tip and that child is not gonna go down the path that they need to come up, go down.

Speaker 1: 27:37

Right, I think we can just look back at the past four years and see what stress has done to people and how it's impacted their ability to thrive in society.

Speaker 1: 27:51

And then you take everything you just said and apply that to a brand new baby or even a new Dero or even a year old, and they're being hit by all these things that they have no way to interpret what's happening. And so it makes so much sense where these reflexes are supposed to naturally transition and help us survive and then help us integrate things that they wouldn't, because I mean the bucket just overflows. It seems like it potentially can fill up really fast before that baby has even taken its first breath of life. And now all the things after that that are associated with toxicity if it wasn't already, it could be after that and overflowing massively. And so it makes so much sense why we see the challenges that we do in kids and in teens and I'll say adults too because of the amount of toxicity in all forms emotional, physical and emotional, chemical that has impacted them from again, as you said, conception and the health of the mother two weeks, three weeks before that.

Speaker 2: 29:13

And we kind of realize what these really are. These are the rudimentary place of all learning for all of us throughout our life. So if an adult, so maybe you integrated just fine. But an adult who has a heart attack, a stroke, some kind of trauma, some kind of emotional event, if that threshold is tipped you're going back into your brainstem because the body has to relearn, the nervous system has to relearn, and so it goes back to the brainstem.

Speaker 1: 29:57

What would that look like? Because I heard you say this in the podcast and I'm like what does that mean? Go back into the brainstem. What would that look like for an individual, or is it going to be different? Or can you give some examples of what that would be my daughter?

Speaker 2: 30:10

had a stroke in 2003 or 2004 and as I was doing work on her body so she had a right-sided stroke, affected the left side of her body. As I was working on her, as I crossed over her hand, she went like that, that's a palmar reflex, so she felt that pressure. Now you then call it a pathological reflex, but that's what it is. When a person has had a stroke, it typically affects one side of the body. That's the entire side of the body. That's why all those different rehabs come in and reteach how to eat, reteach how to breathe, reteach how to control your body. That's what it means to go back into your brainstem so that you can relearn what you normally did.

Speaker 2: 31:14

Now the great part not that I want anybody to go through that, but as an adult you typically would have developed and you had the pathways. If you had those pathways, you can give the proper threshold of intensity and frequency and get things communicating again. If you're a child, you never got the circuit, and that's the big difference. And children do not have a point of reference to say hey, you know, when the light comes in the room, I'm automatically drawn to it. When I hear a pencil drop, I automatically look at it. They don't have that point of reference. So the adult that might say that they've built up their neurology. But there's been an event whatever that event could have been that it was so hard that they literally needed that support from their brainstem to get going forward again.

Speaker 1: 32:19

Okay, that's super fascinating and it makes sense that if you already have that circuitry laid then you can relearn. But if it was never laid then you have no like.

Speaker 2: 32:29

there's no map, there's no picture to make the puzzle off of, yeah, which you're starting from complete scratch, then almost that's right, ian, when the child cannot do it for themself, you have to do it for them, and if you don't build up that intensity and frequency, it ain't going to happen. So I'm working with two young girls that were vaccine injured and they're both in stroller wheelchairs and they don't walk and they, their eyes are typically crossed. Their hands are always like this. That's a Paul Maher reflex, but it's also thumb inside of the hand, which is a stress response. So, and they've got low mass in their legs because they haven't been up in gravity building that mass.

Speaker 2: 33:22

So when they come here we're doing lots of vestibular work, which is so fascinating to watch. When they get done their eyes are straight. That's the vestibular ocular reflex. We open the hand and press it open and give that stimulation to the brain map on the homunculus. I need you to open your hand and then do lots of joint traction, compression, shearing and torsion to give them map, that input to that brain map and then allow her body to lay there with the vestibular so that she can then correlate that information. So those are some of the approaches that you can take. Now I'd love to give people reflex information, but this, this is the deal. You have to be very careful about just throwing information out there and getting people to do certain things.

Speaker 1: 34:28

Right.

Speaker 2: 34:29

If you don't have somebody following the path with them, they can do too much, they can get stuck somewhere else and you won't get the same kind of results.

Speaker 1: 34:44

That makes sense.

Speaker 2: 34:45

You and I were talking before and I think I'm going to take this opportunity to encourage you that we do some training and let you learn this stuff so that you can teach people how to integrate.

Speaker 1: 35:00

Yeah, absolutely, I think that would be so beneficial. I want to ask so is there what you just mentioned that these, these trends like, so transitioning through these reflexes, is essential from one to the other, and that makes a lot of sense. And so then, if someone is trying to work with somebody and they are starting at the wrong point, or, like me, who will not necessarily read directions on something and will start it and be like, oh man, it's fell apart, because the piece that was supposed to be step three I missed and I'm on step 12 and, yeah, a chair is not a chair. So if they don't rehab this properly, they're going to be missing links and pieces and transitions that could create more challenges.

Speaker 2: 35:55

Yeah, you must go back far enough, and this is this is an area that I do.

Speaker 2: 36:03

I do I get very sensitive about it because I've seen, I've seen things happen and people doing too much because they didn't understand an instruction or starting too far down the line. Well, I found this on YouTube, so I decided to try it, and what you're doing is you're jumping ahead of a sequence and you're actually causing more chaos than allowing the body. Because the cool part is is if you go back far enough, this whole, this whole sequence, to me is like a set of dominoes, and you know, people can build beautiful abstract dominoes, structures, and it's one little push and it just goes so smooth, right. So think of these reflexes as a domino out of line, and so it goes, but then it stops. Now somebody can come back in and put a little impulse and maybe you're going to get a little bit more activity, but it's not ever going to be that smooth sequence of events. And the cool part is is if you go back and you start early enough, sometimes you don't have to do all of them.

Speaker 2: 37:19

Now you got the missing link, push it forward and the nervous system is so brilliant it will go. You know there's five parts to looking at children Find motor, gross motor, social communication and adaptation. This is our situation for kids. They keep adapting, they grow, they look like they're going forward, but it's coming out of cost. And the cost is is that they're taking so much energy trying to hold themselves together that there's nothing left to use to learn. And this is another reason why so many kids are labeled Well, you can't pay attention and you're distracted and you've got bad behavior. And it's the effort that's going in to trying to hold it together.

Speaker 1: 38:08

And how much joy can someone actually experience and love can they experience? When I'm just trying to get through a day yes, right, I mean, and that and that speaks to, I think, so much of of what I see, of you know, working with people with Lyme and Mold that there's such a massive emotional and I'll say I'll say, even beyond emotional, I'll say really nervous system component where there's this fight or flight that has been on for so long. And I asking people, you know, do you really have you? When was the last time you just experienced joy or love? And many of them are like never consistently. There are moments here and there, but I just am doing everything I can just to be like here in my body that I can't do anything else, and it's hard sometimes for me to grasp what that looks like. But then I look at members of my family that struggle with this and I and I have a greater awareness to it more recently of wow, just to keep things, as you said, just to keep, you know, the pieces together is so overwhelming that to think of adding something or going after a goal or pursuing a talent is like I can't, it's too much, and for me I'm like, just do it, just try it. But there's this freeze that, no, my body won't do that and I guess I never. I never, until recently, I haven't looked at that, going all the way back to something in utero or before.

Speaker 1: 39:50

And you brought up something interesting. This was with my own kid I hope my wife doesn't mind me sharing this but with my, my youngest now he was, he was C-section, had to be, you know certain, certain things, and my wife had the thought we shouldn't do this until next week. But there was another member of my family's birthday who was like that's not fair. So you know he was scheduled for end of April instead of beginning May. Seven minutes into his life he stopped breathing and you know, everyone was about to walk out.

Speaker 1: 40:30

Everyone was about hey, this was great, congratulations on your baby. And then all of a sudden just stopped and it was like wait, something's wrong here, what's going on? And rushed to a different hospital, nicu. And this was like the very beginning of COVID was in the NICU for a week. You know everyone said, hey, lungs are great, lungs are fine developmentally. But then, when he was born, clearly that was not. And now and we see a lot of these patterns of ADHD and it's like, wow, which one of these reflexes is not gonna have the knowledge to know that?

Speaker 2: 41:05

He stuck in fear paralysis.

Speaker 1: 41:08

So yeah, he was taken and he wasn't ready. Right.

Speaker 2: 41:13

But whatever also went on in that situation. He was rushed to go through a transition to kick on the sympathetic nervous system and he didn't do it. So what were the parts for the sympathetic nervous system, arousal or for more arousal, co2-02 reflex and the sympathetic nervous system, so all three of those. So he's trying to go into that transition and he couldn't do it and he was taken away from the environment that even if they had left him in there just a few more minutes, maybe he could have.

Speaker 1: 41:49

Maybe, yeah, Maybe you'll never know.

Speaker 2: 41:51

No, that's what it is, and so when we don't understand development, we don't look at that. I can remember I saw a C-section actually being done. The mother was so concerned how does she look? How does she look? And the nurses are all going oh, she's big, she's pink, she's beautiful. And then the camera was on dad, and dad knew enough to put his hand, his finger, in her hand and we should have seen this as a reflex. And he was sitting here doing this and nothing was happening and he didn't-.

Speaker 1: 42:28

No problem, oh, okay.

Speaker 2: 42:31

And nobody checks this stuff anymore. And guess what happened? Before she got out of that room? She started having seizures.

Speaker 2: 42:39

So that same thing when we interrupt a process, there's a risk, it doesn't mean it's gonna happen every single time there is a risk and all the other pieces that go into that equation. It's kind of like when we look at an intake form and we're going okay, this person has this, this and this risk factors and we're trying to evaluate what services we're going to give them and there's certain things we learn as a chiropractor might be contraindicated. So you look at the risk factors. So if a person has three risk factors, you're supposed to square root them. There are nine times more likely to have a situation. So you have to bring all those risk factors together and you have to look at the state of health of mom and dad. You have to look at the intake form, you have to look at the birth process and you're gonna square root all those red flags and that's gonna give you the picture of what risks potentially they are for that person.

Speaker 1: 43:49

Wow, this has really been awesome and I don't wanna end without commenting on this and it's because of where the things that I'm doing with people, helping them on roadmap to health, of working on drainage and toxicity and things, and just like you talked about, there is a process and the right sequence that things need to happen. I feel it's the same way with chronic health issues. If you start trying to kill something, lime when pathways aren't open to drain, that's a problem and things get worse. But I wanna touch on that's not where I wanna go, but what I wanna touch on is the impact that these toxicity, because if we don't say it, then people are left to presume or assume on their own. In talking about mold and heavy metals and environmental toxicity in chemicals, I mean this goes back to food and I'm just I'm thinking environmental chemicals, environmental toxins, mold, I mean they will all have a similar impact on these reflexes, as we've been talking about other stresses, correct?

Speaker 2: 44:58

Absolutely. But even more, we can take the reflexes and realize how it gives feedback system, Like I'm burning my arm, pull your arm off. It's a feedback mechanism, okay. So then, as we become having a high toxic load of whatever that is, from the environment to vaccines, heavy metals, medications, bad diet, the whole kit and caboodle when we interrupt how these elimination pathways are meant to work. I do a lot of work in what's that? Mthfr? Okay, you probably do too. So we test for that.

Speaker 2: 45:48

And if a person has a mutation on MTHFR, which is your methylation pathway, it's one of the pathways of how we get toxins out of our body. So if we have a mutation, we're now there's a risk. Okay, so we're gonna start building our bucket of how we're gonna get stuff out. The problem is, the longer this stuff stays around, you're altering the microbiome, You're altering the elimination pathway, You're altering how things get out, and that is going to give a feedback to the brain, and so it is very important that we take the health of our gut, what we're putting in our body, incredibly seriously, because it is the difference between health and no health. I'm actually going to see a friend tomorrow. The reason they asked me to come by and say hi, they can't believe that I'm 63 years old and I'm not on any kind of medication. And he goes. I just want my sister to meet you because maybe she's on a lot.

Speaker 1: 47:02

I'm not really sure what we're talking into.

Speaker 2: 47:06

But medication is there when you absolutely need something. But I don't need that. I live a lifestyle and so I take care of what goes inside of my body. It's either like pay me now, pay me later. I prefer to put the emphasis on the front end. I have a mother that's in a nursing home and her quality of life is horrible and I got to tell you that's a big motivation.

Speaker 2: 47:38

I continue to take care of myself, because I don't want that. So we, and she's completely bombarded with reflexes. I tried to bring her over to my office and my handicap ramp isn't really great and she was so startled trying to come down that she doesn't want to come back. So look at what that's doing because her body is in such ill health. So it's mechanical, it's chemical, it's the brain. We've got to look at all three of those aspects because if you become overburden, regardless of what category we're talking about, you're setting yourself up for going back to your brainstem because it needs help, it needs something to kind of overrind what's going on.

Speaker 1: 48:37

Well, and this has been fascinating and there's so much to go into. I want to have people go to your podcast and and follow you, because I think there's like we can only cover so much, but the things that you share goes so much into more depth, and so will you one Thank you for coming on and thank you for the time and the expertise and the things that you've shared. They're just, they're Golden nuggets of of things that people need to hear. Where, where can they find you? Where can people reach out to you?

Speaker 2: 49:12

Connect my brain. That that's our, that's our website. That's the name of our practice. It's the name of the podcast, connect my brain. The website is connect my calm and you know sometimes in these conversations Questions get stirred up. So if any of your listeners want to reach out, we do have a form right on the website that you can shoot me a question and If you want to have a quick chat, just let me know when you're available. Sometimes that going back and forth, you lose precious time. So tell me when you're available and I'll try to honor your availability and give you a quick call If there's something I might be able to help you with.

Speaker 2: 49:56

We are getting ready to launch an app. I'm very excited about that. It's going to be called connect my brain too, and it focuses on putting this information into the hands of people. It's a free app and it goes over primitive reflexes and what your child should be doing when we're at that time frame, and then, if you want to do a deeper dive, you can go over to our website, then to our e-school, and we have these memberships that we're getting ready to launch, because I want to get this information into the hands of parents and I also want to get it into the hands of professionals. Our children today need it more than ever.

Speaker 1: 50:42

Yeah, Thank you so much for sharing that and and we'll put all those things in the notes so people have access to that. And one takeaway that I have from this today is how amazing and beautiful Life is. This process of development of, of how these things come online, integrate, transition, I mean it. Just to me it speaks that there is such a divine hand in all of this, because how could it happen otherwise? And there's just a beauty to it and a there's definitely a complexity to it, also a simplicity, and that when we're filled with love and light and as we seek those things and then and then hope our best that these natural processes can happen, it's amazing how the body functions and the beauty of that. And then also to have people like you with the know-how and the heart and the expertise to say, hey, we can figure this out, we can go back and we can help, you know, restore whatever amount of function possible. It just speaks to the divinity within us and the beauty of this life.

Speaker 2: 52:03

So Thank you so much for letting me come on your podcast and you have many gifts and the. The thing I think I Treasure in my heart the most about you is that you really have stayed in touch with me over the years and I am so grateful to that and I'm happy to share information, but you're doing Amazing work. I might be focused on kids and it sounds more that you really get into the toxicity, but it's kind of like God's church, right, we all have our gifts and our role and when we pull them together, people can really benefit 100% agree and on that We'll end.

Speaker 1: 52:50

So, thank you. Thank you for listening and, and everyone, keep it real. Thanks for joining me on this episode of restore the real podcast. This show is supported and informed by not only my own deep personal work, but also the deep healing work that we offer our patients here at Total Body Wellness Clinic, and they show us. Below You'll find all the links that you'll need to hop on a discovery call with our team for some one-to-one support, follow along on social media or even learn about some of our favorite recommendations and products. Until next time, keep it real.