Baby Care

Trouble breastfeeding?  Here are some options to explore
  • Explore the possibility that your baby might need a tongue tie released, a frenectomy, or another labial tie released.
  • Connect with a lactation consultant
  • Seek resources at
    • Le Leche League
    • Breastfeeding Assocation
    • http://www.BoobieBikkies.com.au
    • Nancy Mohrbacher on YouTube
    • Womanly Art of Breastfeeding
    • ABA Book about Breastfeeding
  • take your baby to see a cranial nerve re-sequencing specialist, such as Lois Laynee of http://www.restoringbreathing.com
  • Do visualization, as athletes do, imagining the baby suckling gently…imagining water or milk flowing over a waterfall, etc. 😉
  • Make sure you’re not pushing the baby’s head forward in your hold, while they are trying to drink
  • Hold the baby so that the baby’s head is on the chest in between the breasts, and see if they can find their own way to the breast
Trouble With Having Enough Breastmilk?

Spend a few to several hours each day with skin-to-skin contact with your baby — this can stimulate milk production.  Get a good book, or some good movies…put your baby on your chest, and relax in this ski-to-skin contact!

If you cannot breastfeed after trying, don’t buy toxin-laden baby formula

Instead, consider the baby formulas suggested by the Weston A. Price Foundation. 

Consider ditching the diapers with elimination communication
Continue to protect your child in regards to vaccines & learn how to holistically support them through illness.

Learn what remedies can be used to safely support your child through illness and infection.  www.sophiami-chaelremedies.com – A website created by Dr. Kelly Sutton, M.D., offering a wide range of resources for holistic support and care of a child.

Plan Your Support team for after the birth, once you’re home!

Sleep is a critical thing for the new mom.  Pregnancy is a good time to plan who will support you after the birth so you can get the sleep you need. Obviously your sleep will be interrupted a lot, but having support can allow you to get the rest you need.

Your support people can help execute the ‘womb service’, which includes keep the baby warm, wrapping the baby, relaxing baths, etc.

Consider ‘wearing’ your baby

Wearing your baby which helps them develop their circadian rhythm.  There are many resources online to teach mothers different ways to do this.

Is Your Baby Waking Up Even More Than Usual During the Night or Crying More than Usual?

Babies get very distracted at four month, which might prevent them from feeding enough during the day, then causing them to wake up more during the night to feed.  So, consider wearing a brightly colored necklace during the day to keep your baby interested and less prone to other distractions during the feeding during the day.  Or, go into a quiet room to feed during the day.

Consider foods likes grapes, citrus, tomatoes, which might be sensitive to the baby when they absorb these things through the breastmilk.  There could be any food that is sensitive to the baby, especially salicylates.  If you are eating a LOT of any one thing, try cutting back and see if that helps for a few days.

If there’s anything the mom sort of binged on during pregnancy, those foods can then cause the baby to be unsettled if you eat a lot of them again post-birth, as it translates into the breastmilk.

Some people say that sometimes babies cry their mother’s tears, if mom is anxious or upset….the pheromones of the mom can sometimes then upset the baby.

CREATE A GARDEN FOR YOUR BABY!

https://permies.com/t/172954/Garden-Baby-Explore

Take some time to read about the leaps your baby makes all within the first year!

www.thewonderweeks.com

Get some ideas on how to support your child’s key developments through play

The Power of Play: A Pediatric Role in Enhancing Development in Young Children

Teething

If your baby is having a hard time during teething, consider propping up the baby’s mattress just slightly, so that the top of their body is raised a tiny bit…maybe by placing a small towel underneath the part of the mattress.  This helps a lot of babies sleep better during teething.

Protect the ability for your baby to procreate someday by Avoiding Over the Counter Drugs & Dangerous Devices

Studies show that using over the counter drugs will reduce your fetus’s ability to procreate when they grow up, by 50% for females, ad 66% for males.  Read the science here.  Hurtado-Gonzalez, et all, April 2018

  • Drugwatch – A resource for parents and children who are on medications or medical devices. Drugwatch keeps an eye on pharmaceutical companies to ensure your prescriptions are free of harm. Comprehensive guides on children’s health and defective medical drugs and devices are listed for those seeking answers.
  • Fluoroquinolones – Cipro, Levaquin & Avelox are the most used type of antibiotics in the United States. Over 26 million people received prescriptions each year. But recent studies link these drugs to aortic dissection and aneurysm. Both conditions weaken the walls of the aorta, the largest blood vessel in the body, and may lead to a rupture or leak which can be life-threatening. Click here for more information.
Protect your baby from electromagnetic radiation (EMF / EMR)

There is a multitude of scientific studies on pummer showing how babies and children are even more susceptible to EMR, than adults.

  • Resources: get up to speed on this issue quickly with this list which includes the following three:
    • Baby Safe Project –  Dr. Hugh Taylor, head of OB-GYN at Yale has done some of the science, and has seen what happens to mice and their pups when exposed to wireless radiation, and has created the Baby Safe Project.
    • 13 easy ways to reduce your exposure to EMFs in your home – link.
    • Wireless Education course (1/2 hour long) developed by folks in the U.K.  It teaches you the science and the risks and gives you a tip sheet for the medically recommended practices for wireless safety – $7.95 – link.
Choose baby clothes, bedding, mattresses, and car seats without bromide and other toxic chemicals! 

Learn more here.

Protect your yourself and your fetus from absorbing toxic chemicals left on clothing and bedding from toxic laundry detergent. 
How to change a diaper

without subluxating the lumbodorsal junction of the spine.

Avoid hip dysplasia

Don’t swaddle a baby’s legs tight, and choose carrier that support the thigh and allow the legs to spread to keep the hip in a stable position.

Let your baby eat their own food for proper Cranial Bone Development & Other Health Benefits

The first reason is so you avoid feeding them mushy foods.  Eating soft foods will cause their jaws to develop less.  How do we know this?  Harvard researcher Daniel Liebermann has researched jaw and cranial growth, and how growth is influenced by things seemingly unimportant as whether we eat harder or softer foods!  His page of research articles are here: https://scholar.harvard.edu/dlieberman/publications.  You can find his study about hard food here:  “Dietary consistency and the midline sutures in growing pigs”

The second reason is to enjoy relaxing and fun meals with your baby and your spouse.  Don’t stress yourself and everyone else out by force feeding your baby gross mushy foods.  Wait until they start reaching for food, and let them eat real food.  It’s called Baby-Led Weaning.  Join the forum here.

Reusable swim diapers or potty trainers

via Maia from http://www.GimmetheGoodStuff.com: “if you are are planning to take your baby/toddler to the pool or lake or pond or ocean, check out these TotsBots adorable swim diapers. They are planet-friendly, toxin-free, and will catch a poop way better than any disposable will in the water. Oh, and you can also totally use them during potty-training.”

Books & Articles

Taken from: https://www.drdebragambrell.com/important-references-links/

  • You and Your Child’s Health –  A website created by Dr. Susan Johnson, M.D. offering easy-to-read articles for parents about education, health, nutrition and parenting.
  • A Guide to Child’s Health: A Holistic Approach to Raising Healthy Children – Dr. Michaela Glockler
    This has practical approaches to health and disease as well as broader discussions on development.
  • Awakening to Child Health I: Holistic Child and Adolescent Development – Raoul Goldberg, M.D.
    (This offers a “broad-based, in-depth look at the healthy child as an essential point of departure for those who wish to offer children the best care and protection.”)
  • You are Your Child’s First Teacher – Rahima Baldwin Dancy
  • The Developing Child: The First Seven Years – Published by the WECAN
  • Steiner Education in Theory and Practice – Gilbert Childs
What about saving for your child’s future?  College?  Braces?

Who can afford all of this?  Not many, which is why we have to get creative.

  • For college, maybe your child can get their degree in Europe and live there for several years after, as described in this CNN article.  Maybe they can find a trade that they are interested in, such as permaculture-based farming involving key line design and holistic planned grazing, or training horses, or carpentry.  Encourage their interests and hopefully they can find a master to apprentice with for several years when the time is right.  Some places require interns to PAY for their internship! It seems crazy at first, but often it takes a master MORE time to teach an intern how to do something than to do it themselves.  Think about the cost of an internship vs. college tuition!  If none of these are an option, save enough to send your child to a local technical college for an associate’s degree in something like nursing or a trade.  If they don’t like that career, they can work their way toward a degree in something else afterward.

Regarding braces – just say no!  But in the meantime, do what you need to do to eliminate the NEED for your child to get braces.  Most importantly, getting the proper treatment at the RIGHT TIME/AGE will increase your child’s health and well-being for the rest of their lives, and it will save you a lot of money!  Orthodontists force teeth to be in what they consider alignment (but which is really just cosmetic, not occlusal alignment), using non-removable, or ‘fixed’ appliances, such as braces.  The simplified approach is to make the teeth ‘straight’ using any means necessary, including pulling teeth, braces, etc. Dental Orthopedics, or Functional Orthodontics, on the other hand, is a model which focuses on the structure and alignment of cranial bones, with the intent to align the jaw toward its normal developmental state, focusing on both the height and width of the bite.

How to eliminate the need for braces altogether?  Make sure the jaw and cranium develop properly so that there is enough room for the teeth – simple!!  But if you start when the child is 6 years old and showing signs of crowding, you’ve missed the boat completely – that ship has SAILED!  Instead, starting after birth, take your baby to regularly see at least one of the practitioners from #1 – 4, AS WELL AS #5: a holistic dentist.  Most holistic or functional orthopedic dentists want to treat children starting at age 4 or earlier for optimum results.  If they can treat the children from a very early age, or from birth, that is the best!!!

  1. certified craniopath, which you can find through the Sacro Occipital Research Society International: http://www.sorsi.com.
  2. Osteopath who specializes in the cranial field: http://www.cranialacademy.org
  3. Directional non-force chiropractic, especially good with aligning vertebrae: http://www.nonforce.com
  4. Myofascial release: http://www.myofascialrelease.com
  5. Holistic dentist, which you can find through one of the organization listed below.  Ramiel Nagel shares that we must be careful in selecting a holistic or functional orthopedic dentist.  He warns that too much widening of the jaw, or at the wrong rate, or wrong spot, can all destabilize the cranial system.  It is important that the practitioner understands their tools and their art form, and that they are not just using som appliance after taking a 40-hour training course.  He suggests that we ask questions such as: “Do the faces of their patients exhibit aesthetic harmony?  Do they look relaxed and natural?”  Ramiel says that the skill and understanding of the practitioner more than the appliances used that makes the crucial difference in treatment.
    1. http://www.alforthodontics.com – Advanced Lightwire Functional (ALF) practitioners, some of them work together with osteopaths.
    2. http://www.aago.com – American Academy of Gnathologic Orthopedics
    3. http://www.aacfp.org – American Academy of Cranial Facial Pain
    4. http://www.orthotropics.com – Orthotropics, natural growth guidance

When we are born, many of us have imbalances in the bones  of our body, particularly the cranial bones (cranial distortion).  This can happen simply from the trauma (and wonderful!) experience of traveling out of the womb through the birth canal.  Some births are easier and some are harder or take longer, but any baby, regardless of difficulty or time of birth, can, and often have, a cranial distortion.  As Ramiel Nagel says in Chapter 9 of “Cure Tooth Decay,” – “over time these distortions, or bone malformations in the cranium or cervical vertebrae , can lead to bite distortions, particularly left/right imbalances where one side of the jaw develops more fully than the other.”  Innovators like Lois Laynee of http://www.restoringbreathing.com have allegedly suggested that in different times, especially when women birthed children earlier in their lifespan late teens/early 20s) many more women were available/still living in a family or tribe to hold and rub the baby’s head and body after birth and in the months following (mother: age 18, grandmother: age 36, great-grandmother: age 54, and potentially, the great-great grandmother: age 72, etc).  She suggests that this stimulus could have balanced the baby’s cranial bones.  Perhaps the incessant licking we see in animal after birth is another version of this stimulation, and perhaps it serves many purposes, one of which is the rebalancing of the cranial bones.

It is not just after birth that gentle craniopathic interventions would be awesome.  Toddlers, children, and adolescents sustain injuries and other traumas in life which also cause cranial bones to become stuck, which again, can cause imbalances which can become permanent over time if not addressed. Why is this the case?

You know that soft spot on the top of a baby’s head that everyone is really protective of?

According to ‘The Heart of Listening’ by Hugh Milne, page 16…

This spot, along with every other joint in the baby’s body is composed of membrane or cartilage at birth, not bone.  “There is softness everywhere, the body like liquid gold.  ….Many of the cranial bones are subdivided at birth: the occiput in four parts, the temporals in three, the frontal and mandible in two parts each.  The atlas is in three parts.  The various parts of united by cartilage, floating like icebergs in a sea of ever-moving, responsive dura.”

During birth, “[the parietal bones] ideally [slip] gently over and external to the frontal and occipital bones.  One partial bone overalls the other at the saggital suture.  The temporal bones slip external to the parietals, and the zygomae slip inferior to the temporal part of the zygomatic arches.  At full term the sphenobasilar joint behaves like an intervertebral disc: it is dynamically capable of universal joint movement, as well as lateral and vertical strain patterns.”

What does all this mean?  Basically, there’s a lot of movement going on in a baby’s head during birth?  Have you ever seen “cone-head” babies right after birth?  These are more extreme examples of cranial distortions, and the head quickly returns to a ‘normal’ shape, but there may still be imbalances that we are not noticing with our untrained eyes.  According to Milne: “At birth the brain is one-quarter of its adult size, then doubles in size in the next twelve months.  Cranial bones grow and change shape to accommodate the growth rate of the brain, continuing to protect their ever-expanding charge.  Bone growth is coordinated by genetic whispers, hormonal suffusions, neurological imperative, and the pressure exerted by the brain.  Under compression from the growing brain, the piezoelectric charge of bone becomes negative, thus attracting more osteoblasts.”

So, why the rush to get craniopathic treatment during childhood?  As we grow, various parts of the bone ossify (become bone rather than membrane or cartilage) and sutures ‘close.’  Once these things happen, it is MUCH harder to rebalance the cranial bones.  For example…

“At birth the cranium consists of a partly ossified vault (the calvarium), formed out of paper-thin membrane, and a partly ossified cranial base, formed out of cartilage.  The cartilage begins to ossify as early as the seventh week after conception, [and] the membrane a week later.”

“The posterior fontanel is closed by the end of the first year”

“The anterior [fontenel] is closed by the end of the second [year].”

“Cranial suture genesis begins with the genetically coded sutures shape, which is then personally tailored by posture and movement: motion (and impact trauma) determines the final architecture of the joints.  Until [the baby’s] second year, [their] individual cranial bones remain quite independent in terms of the possibilities for movement, which makes the countless falls of childhood relatively easy for the head to absorb and distribute – the bones jar momentarily, held together and synchronized in their movement by the RTM system.  Sutural interdigitation begins to appear by the end of the second year, and is completed in the fourth year.”

“The frontal (metric) suture does not close until the fourth year.”

“The triple-layer architecture of most cranial bones (smooth dense cortical bone on the outside, honeycomb or dipodic bone in the middle, and another layer of cortical bone on the inside) does not become formed until the fourth year.”

“The full interlocking and formation of what Sutherland called the “articular gears” is in place by age six.”

“Both the occipital and sphenoidal cephalad portions do not ossify until the seventh to eight year.”

“If the sphenobasiliar joint ossifies, it does so at the same time as the sacrum, between the twentieth and twenty-fifth year. 

Now, back to the recommendations about practitioners (at least one practitioner from #’s 1 -4 above, AND A holistic dentist)….  why take your child to TWO practitioners?  Ramiel again wisely reminds us that without substantial background education in chiropractic care, physical therapy, craniopathy, and osteopathy, dentists are poorly equipped to correct bite dysfunctions because they didn’t learn how the body functions as a complete organism.  The haven’t been taught how to check for and repair functionality by physically manipulating the patient’s body.  Conversely, chiropractors and osteopaths are limited in their ability to correct the cranial system and bite of an individual because they have little or not training in orthopedic appliances to overcome physiological obstacles.  Ramiel says that the best situation is one where the dentist works in the same office as an osteopath, or if the dentist has extensive training and experience in craniopathy or osteopathy himself.  Manipulating the patient’s body physically during the dental appointment ensures that the dental appliance fits in a way that is beneficial for the patient’s body.  Without the supplemental bodywork treatments, patients can develop chronic tension and pain as their bodies struggle to adapt to the appliance, which may have been fitted when the cranial bones were imbalanced.

Everything is connected!  “Every time you move even one tooth, some or all of the 23 cranial bones are going to move with it.  that is because the tooth is attached to our jaw bone.”  and vice versa! — consider this when thinking about nature of braces!!!   “The dura mater and fascia also move when teeth are moved. ….The net result of the interconnection of cranial bones and teeth is that it is possible to go through an entire round of orthopedics or orthodontics and have the jaw and bite function perfectly, but still have a distorted cranial system.  If the distorted cranial system in that situation is fixed by a craniopath who moves cranial bones, then the interlocking bones of the skull will move the bite back out of position, and the dental treatment may need to be redone.”

Why is malocclusion so rampant in ‘civilized’ industrial societies?  This is a great question that has many answers, and the list of answers is by no means complete.

  1. Hardness of foods in diet.  Researchers from Harvard have shown in pig studies that the pigs who eat a ‘soft food diet’ have a lack of jaw development, when compared with pigs who eat a ‘hard food diet.’  This is literally referring to the hardness of the foods fed to the pigs.  Think of tough meat and hard Danish bread vs. mashed potatoes.  They therefore conclude that the more hard foods in the diet, the more jaw development one will have. Reference: “Dietary consistency and the midline sutures in growing pigs“.
  2. Stress.  Roger Price teaches us in his Breathing Well video available for free on YouTube that there are 3 categories of stressors which cause change in breathing patterns: (ingestional such as allergies, functional such as postural, and stress, such as family discord, bullying or abuse, etc).  When we are stressed, our heart rate variability changes, and our breathing changes, and often, becomes faster.  What is heart rate variability?  When we’re stressed emotionally, physically, or when we’re sick, the spacing between the heart beats changes – that is the variability….heart rate variability (HRV).  HRV is one of the signals which tells your body how much energy to make and how to allocate the body’s resources.  Breathing faster due to stress causes a very complex cascade of physiological changes, and one of the obvious results can be breathing through the mouth rather than the nose.
  3. Nutrition – of the mother pre-conception and during pregnancy and breast-feeding. Read Weston Price’s book ‘Nutrition and Physical Degeneration‘ for
  4. more information.  He shows that cranial and jaw development fails to blossom after just one degeneration when foods and other lifestyles habits of modern societies are introduced.  He makes yet another case that our malocclusion epidemic is not genetic, but rather environmental.
  5. Other environmental factors inherent in modern lifestyles which we haven’t yet been able to directly quantify as it relates to cranial development, such as diet, toxins, lack of exposure to nature, etc.  John Mew studies skulls, and in one of his presentations (starting at 25:27): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhXPh5N5XN8) he shows a skull found in the UK.  He states that DNA was taken from this skull, and was compared with the DNA of the locals, and that a direct living descendent was identified locally.  He then had an artist make a drawing of what the person would have looked like to whom this skull belonged (you can see the picture in the video presentation).   John Mew argues that in fact even Caucasions have the genetics for well-developed maxillas and mandibles.  Though it is increasingly more and more rare, some ‘caucasion’ models and athletes today still have well-developed craniums and jaws, like Julia Roberts.  John Mew argues that the cranial developmental difference between the skull they found and the skulls of its living descendants is purely a result of environmental factors.  Here’s shorter video probably making the argument that our teeth crowding (jaw size decreasing) is not genetic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY3bIMRKil8.
Parenting