A Comprehensive Guide to Nurturing Your Infant’s Development

The journey of parenthood is both beautiful and challenging. As a new parent, you might find yourself asking, “What are the keys to ensuring my infant’s health and development?” In a world brimming with conflicting opinions, navigating the intricate path of understanding what constitutes genuine and healthy development for your little one is often daunting.

That is why we aim to bring you clarity and unwavering confidence. In this blog, we will delve into the four fundamental developmental tasks that infants aged 4 months and under must master. These tasks serve as the very bedrock of your infant’s health, growth, and development. Every smile, every milestone achieved, and even the occasional struggle can be traced back to these pivotal elements of development. So, if your baby is struggling with colic, constipation, reflux, sleep issues or developmental delays, read on to equip yourself with the knowledge to support your child’s well-being.

The Science Behind Infant Development

In the initial few months of life, infants undergo remarkable transformations. However, encountering issues such as colic, constipation, or reflux can lead to countless sleepless nights, which may make you wonder if your struggles are normal or if others are facing the same challenges. While each infant is unique, has good days and bad days, and develops at their own pace, understanding the typical small behaviors and milestones can give parents the confidence they need to get help for their babies or the confidence to stay the course.

The four cornerstones of infant development are: Eat, Sleep, Poop, and Motor Function.

These are the pillars upon which your baby’s well-being rests, and mastering them can make all the difference. Below is what each cornerstone should look like for your infant.

1. Eat (Breastfeeding or Bottle Feeding)

o A comfortable and easy latch during feeding

o A strong suck that doesn’t involve biting or excessive air intake

o Controlled and effortless swallowing, adjusting speed as needed

o Minimal or comfortable post-feeding spitting up

2. Sleep

o The ability to self-soothe and sleep soundly

o Comfort in multiple sleeping positions

o The development of a sleep-wake cycle after a few weeks

o The ability to sleep in longer stretches of 2-3+ hours at a time

3. Poop

o Efficient food digestion

o Minimal gas or grunting during sleep

o Regular and frequent bowel movements (the frequency varies but should be multiple times a day during the first 2-3 months)

o Minimal strain or discomfort during bowel movements

4. Motor/Foundation Movements

o Steady head and neck control without external support

o Tracking objects with visual attention

o Responding with smiles upon hearing your voice

o Engaging with hands, including opening and closing them

o Bringing hands to the mouth

o Comfort and willingness to participate in tummy time and interact with toys and people (typically around 3-4 months)

In contrast, if your baby encounters challenges in any of these areas, you may notice:

· Frequent stiffening, arching, head and neck discomfort, and excessive crying

· Difficulty maintaining head elevation during tummy time

· Premature attempts to stand with a stiff and tense posture

· Persistent problems related to sleep, digestion (commonly constipation), and immune function

· Excessive crying, distress, reduced eye contact, diminished smiles, interaction, and babbling

Birth Trauma and Its Consequences

When we dive into the underlying root cause behind why your infant might be struggling, a recurring factor we consistently see as a significant contributor to difficulties eating, sleeping, pooping, or movement is birth trauma. This trauma can impact vital brainstem and cerebellum regions, profoundly affecting their essential roles in facilitating these fundamental tasks.

Factors such as the baby's position during pregnancy, the duration of the birth process, or medical interventions like C-sections, vacuum extraction, or forceps delivery can exert physical tension on the delicate tissues of the

brainstem and upper neck. These regions play a pivotal role in regulating the autonomic nervous system, coordinating motor function, supporting immune health, and facilitating digestion.

In essence, if your newborn experienced stress during pregnancy or delivery, it could affect their ability to eat, sleep, poop, and move comfortably.

How Can Chiropractic Care Help?

As Neurologically-Focused Pediatric Chiropractor at Live Well Family Chiropractic, we possess the expertise in helping infants who have endured birth trauma and may be experiencing struggles related to eating, sleeping, pooping, or movement.

If your baby exhibits signs of colic, reflux, constipation, or difficulty sleeping or eating, these are all indicators that your infant’s nervous system is involved. By optimizing your baby’s nervous system function and supporting development, our neuro-tonal chiropractic adjustments can be instrumental in fostering a healthy and thriving baby.

Don’t be disheartened by the notion they will “grow out of it.” We are here to offer support for your baby now!

Dr. Tara is dedicated to providing you with the absolute best in family wellness care. So take a moment today to discuss with your Family Wellness Chiropractor any concerns you may have regarding your family’s overall health and wellness.

Empowering ADHD Learners: Navigating School Challenges with Confidence

If your child is facing the challenges of ADHD-related behavior and school difficulties, you’re not alone. The early months of the school year can be incredibly tough for families dealing with ADHD. Establishing routines, completing homework, staying focused, and managing behavior can be daunting. With the added temptations of holiday treats and festivities, this time of year can be especially challenging for children with ADHD.

We want to dig into the neurological aspects of ADHD in children and how these kiddos find themselves in a perpetual state of high alert, akin to a car always having the gas pedal on. This continuous state of fight or flight response leads to hyperactivity, impulsivity, difficulties with concentration, and disrupted sleep patterns.

This blog is specifically for parents who want to help their child struggling with ADHD thrive without relying on heavy medications. We want to equip you with the knowledge and strategies to help your child find their way to a calmer and more focused state by engaging their innate “brake pedal” mechanisms, through the Vagus nerve. We’ll discuss the natural, drug-free solutions and options that can significantly impact your child’s school year.

Understanding ADHD Symptoms and Challenges

To empower your child, it’s essential to understand the five main ways ADHD can negatively impact their school performance.

1. Difficulty Focusing and Sustaining Attention: ADHD children often struggle to maintain focus and attention on tasks, leading to missed instructions and incomplete assignments.

2. Impulsivity and Impaired Decision-Making: Impulsivity can manifest as speaking out of turn and disruptive behavior, hindering their learning and disrupting the class.

3. Restlessness and Hyperactivity: Some ADHD children exhibit hyperactivity, making it difficult for them to sit still and engage in quiet tasks.

4. Poor Time Management and Organization: Time management and organizational skills are often challenging for ADHD children, leading to missed deadlines and frustration.

5. Emotional Dysregulation: Emotional challenges, including heightened stress responses, can make it difficult for them to manage frustration and peer interactions.

Understanding the Root Causes and Neurological Connection

One of the most frustrating aspects of dealing with ADHD is its ability to manifest in various challenges throughout your child’s daily life, particularly in the school environment. But here’s the empowering revelation we want to share with you - all these challenges stem from a common root cause: an overactive and excessively stimulated sympathetic nervous, often referred to as the “fight or flight” response.

We liken this aspect of the nervous system to the relentless “gas pedal.” Astonishingly, over 90% of children find themselves stuck in this hyperactive state from the very beginning of their lives. It can start during a stressful and emotionally charged pregnancy, continuing through birth trauma or

intervention such as forceps, vacuum, induction, or emergency C-sections.

If your child struggled with any early childhood challenges like colic, recurrent ear infections frequent tantrums, and sleep difficulties, those experiences only exacerbate this overdrive. Importantly, this only suppresses their parasympathetic “brake pedal,” mainly governed by the Vagus Nerve, rendering it incapable of fulfilling its crucial role when needed the most.

Despite many of these early struggles being labeled as “normal” by the medical system, these stressors and interventions during pregnancy and birth, as well as early childhood challenges, are not something children naturally grow out of. Current research and neurological insights tell us a different story. Instead, many of these children evolve into individuals grappling with neurological difficulties later in life, like ADHD.

How Can Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Help?

So, if your child is struggling this school year and you’re hesitant about medication, there’s hope. Consider exploring Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care at Live Well Family Chiropractic. Our approach doesn’t aim to treat or cure ADHD, but it activates the “brake pedal” side of your child’s brain and nervous system. This helps regulate the overactive sympathetic “gas pedal” we’ve discussed.

To learn more about drug-free options for ADHD and our care protocols, give us a call today at Live Well Family Chiropractic and one of our incredible Care Advocates will walk you through it all.

Parenting a child with ADHD is a journey filled with unique challenges and rewards. We want to help you turn these challenges into opportunities for growth and success. We’d love to work with you to help your child and entire family experience brighter days ahead

Dr. Tara is dedicated to providing you with the absolute best in family wellness care. So take a moment today to discuss with your Family Wellness Chiropractor any concerns you may have regarding your family’s overall health and wellness.

Balance and Chiropractic

Balance and Chiropractic

There are many aspects of everyday life that we don’t really value until they’re missing; balance is definitely one of these. Since it is a vital part of normal daily activities such as: walking, bending over to put on or take off shoes, showering and washing hair, grocery shopping and getting out of a chair – any change can be both noticeable and annoying. Interestingly enough it’s also one of our most complicated involuntary functions. There are several systems, mechanisms and body parts involved in something that seems pretty straight-forward and simple. The truth is, it’s neither.

Proper Balance

The ability for the body to maintain a proper balance is dependent upon three primary factors. The first is the sensory system which must accurately receive information as to your body’s relative position to your environment. Are you standing, sitting or lying down? The sensory systems that affect balance include everything from vision and inner ear motion sensors to the sense of touch on your feet, ankles and other joints in your legs. The second factor to affect balance is your brain’s ability to process this information once it’s received. The third and final factor, your muscles and joints must coordinate their movements in order to maintain balance. Balance control is automatic, in that it doesn’t require our conscious attention to maintain; however, if something interferes with that state, we will have to exert quite a bit of effort to correct it.

A properly functioning nervous system is going to play a vital role in balance.

Standing and Walking

When standing still and walking, the concerted effort between the muscles and ligaments in the spine, legs and feet is significant. Many studies have been done to determine just how much proper balance will affect posture and gait.

Based on an inverted pendulum model, David Winter, PhD, assessed and determined that balance is a vital part of standing and walking. His study found that the entire spine, as well as most of the body’s neuro-sensory systems, are involved in balance while standing and walking. As a matter of fact, the only muscles that had a negligible effect are those found around the ankle.

When considering balance during walking it’s important to keep in mind what happens to the center of mass and the center of pressure during the process and how it applies to posture and gait. Based on the biomechanics of the human body there are three mechanisms that allow us to maintain balance while walking. First is the moving of the center of pressure in respect to standing upright which affects the center of mass. Second is accelerating the body around the center of mass. The application of an external force is the third.

In other words, maintaining our center of mass is the most vital part of balance and our body uses many different muscles, ligaments, senses and mechanisms to do so while standing and walking. Without these internal forces working together properly, we would struggle to stand upright and walk straight.

The primary systems most involved with walking are the vestibular and proprioceptive systems. The vestibular system tells the brain about balance and moving against gravity while the proprioceptive systems helps our bodies to coordinate the movement of our arms and legs in an efficient manner.

Potential Problems and Causes

Balance is typically found to be affected when someone experiences dizziness, to use this term loosely. Some people who report feeling dizzy have clarified that it feels like the room is spinning around them or that they are turning. Others have used the terms floating, light-headedness or giddiness. Regardless of the description, this may be the sign of a problem.

The most common cause of balance problems tends to be an inner ear issue. Anything from an ear infection to hearing loss may cause a loss of balance. Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo or BPPV happens when tiny crystals within the ear get dislodged and begin to move around within the ear. This results in motion signals being sent to the brain when there really is no motion, thus causing that dizziness.

Other types of vertigo include central or neurological vertigo, post-traumatic vertigo and vascular vertigo to name a few. Central or neurological vertigo is a dizziness that is the result of a problem in the balance center of the brain rather than the ear. This type of dizziness is much less common than inner-ear related dizziness. Post-traumatic vertigo is the result of a head injury, concussion or whiplash. Vascular vertigo is a dizziness caused by problems with the blood supply to the inner ear or the balance center of the brain. In each of these cases, symptoms may include severe dizziness and difficulty maintaining balance when walking.

Additional balance problems may be the result of weakened muscles, joints or vision. As we get older, our body will naturally begin to wear down. Since so much of the body’s systems are involved in balance, it’s natural for it to be affected.

Finally, a typical but not commonly considered source of balance problems is prescription medications. Many prescription medications will list dizziness as a sideeffect but if it’s not discussed with the patient they may not realize it’s the cause.

These are just a few of the potential issues that may affect balance. There are many more including but not limited to: acoustic neuroma, arteriosclerosis, hyperventilation, labyrinthitis, ototoxicity, peripheral fistula, peripheral vestibular disorders and tinnitus.

Recommended Exercises

There are several exercises that can be done to help maintain or improve balance. For instance, standing on one leg for an extended period of time. The purpose of these exercises is to make all of those mechanisms in your body that maintain balance work together so, while making your body maintain balance is useful, the process of shifting your weight from one leg to the other then standing on that one leg for several minutes is going to be more beneficial.

If you’re looking for a regulated exercise program that will help with balance, consider Yoga, Tai Chi or Pilates. All of these disciplines requires moving the body into specific positions and then maintaining them. Vriksasana or Tree Pose, for example, is a Yoga pose that requires balancing on one leg.

Also note that the balance center of the brain plays a vital role, making brain exercises equally valuable. Any exercise that will integrate sensory input and strengthen motor skills while exercising balance and stability will be beneficial. Examples would be running, skipping, jumping, climbing, swinging and crawling. If an older child doesn’t want to get down on all fours and crawl around, then make it fun by creating an obstacle course: they climb over some barriers and crawl under others. Dr. Monika Buerger, an expert in neurosensory integration and contributing author in the Pediatric Chiropractic textbook, says th

at physical activity is a valuable source of brain exercise.

The Chiropractic Factor

To better understand how chiropractic care may influence your balance, consider just how many different bodily systems, mechanisms and muscles, joints, etc. are involved in maintaining it.

The central nervous system is made up of the brain, spinal cord and the nerves that go out to the muscles, organs and glands. A misalignment in the spine may cause nerve interference which in turn may affect the processing of messages from the brain to those muscles, organs and glands. As such, a properly aligned spine is vital to a properly functioning nervous system and, because the nervous system controls all bodily systems, it is also vital to balance.

Since the sacrum and ilium are the bones closest to our legs and hips, it’s logical that a misalignment here would affect our gait and, in turn, our balance; but any spinal misalignment has the potential to affect balance. Even misalignment of the atlas, which is the vertebra at the very top of the spine, could be an issue. As the balance center of the brain must send messages through the spinal cord to the rest of the body, this is also a logical conclusion.

A properly functioning nervous system is going to play a vital role in balance so be sure to discuss any concerns with your Family Wellness Chiropractor today.