Baby Steps

I am blessed in the fact that I have a perfectly healthy and beautiful baby girl. It is a privilege to be with her as she progresses through the stages of development. Throughout this whole process, I’ve been in awe at how quickly she picks things up, but more so at what she learns to do naturally.

In the animal kingdom, there is the concept of instinct; the innate ability to carry out patterns of behavior. It is why birds fly south in the winter, or why salmon swim upstream, or even why the spider makes its web. No one taught these animals how to do these things or why, they just do them automatically.

Children are the same way. They see everything you do as a parent (or bystander) and if it’s weird enough to them, they’ll mimic you. But children don’t mimic instincts. They only mimic the things they cannot understand, in hope that through practice they will understand it. Often times, even as adults, we still don’t understand whywe do the things we do. But we still do them because somewhere down the line we inherited that thing or idea, and we don’t have the ability to process it alone.

This is why so many people see therapists, or need to. With the help of someone else, you can figure out what it is that is so confusing to you and put some meaning behind it so you don’t have to mimic any longer. A healthy relationship will do this naturally, but it requires boundaries.

A child does not need to mimic an instinct because there is such a deep understanding behind the why. We don’t know what’s driving this instinctual force, but it has roots. These roots relate to multiple generations before the child, and the child has inherited them as what we would simplify as genetics. A blueprint type of code that helps directs the body’s growth and function.

In practice, I see this all the time. A mother and daughter who have the same hip function and limitations, or a father and son who’s feet are only different in age. Scoliosis, headaches, weak hips, bad knees, bad shoulders.. the list of passed down issues is long. These are all things that can be avoided for the most part, but only if we understand one small concept:

We all have the same instinctual aim, but we are course dependent.

The foundations of all movement are established in the first year of life. From day 1 to day 365, infants begin to move in patterns. First they begin to lift their heads to see the world. Then they roll into tummy time to load the shoulders. They engage the core and lift their tiny feet up into the air and eventually into their mouths. They challenge the hips and lower abdomen as they learn to crawl. Eventually they can sit up on their own and lift themselves onto two feet. And as the year comes to an end, these children can effectively push themselves off the floor onto their feet and begin to walk.

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This is the goal for every healthy child born into the world. But, remember, we are all course dependent.. Meaning that some will progress through these movement patterns faster or slower than the rest. If a child begins to stand and walk too early, they’ve missed the crawl period where the hips and shoulders develop. Likewise, if they’re stuck army crawling well into the first year, they’ll over-train erectors and shoulders. What’s the outcome for these children? Scoliosis, reversed spinal curves, weak hips and shoulders, future knee and feet issues, imbalanced shoulder formation, structural malformation.. and so on.

As the child grows, they might learn the hard way what their physical limitations are. A history of sports injuries, clumsiness, or even postural anxiety and depression, might lead them to research why they are like this. They would be lucky to find an answer. They might settle for genetic predisposition, and that’s not a horrible answer.

Genetics

“The sins of the father are to be laid upon the children” -William Shakespeare

We know that you inherit the genes from your parents and their parents and so on forever. We also know that through the process of epigenetics, your parents, or their parents, or you can change lifestyle to change DNA representation.

This is why race is a thing, because the environment changed DNA over time to produce more or less melanin to optimize vitamin D production, while also protecting the body. The outcome would result in darker or lighter skin tone. Hair texture and color, eye color, height, body type.. all of these are from the same long term process of DNA change.

So does that mean a poor moving adult might create a poor moving child? - Possibly.

Genetic code does not translate to speedier development directly, instead it might correlate to stress response. Some infants are more stressed out than others, and will grow to be that way still, unless there is some sort of choice to change that. Stress can influence body movement.

We don’t know much, as far as passed down stress, but we do know that a stressful environment can affect infant movement. In the womb, a stressed or scared mother can pass elevated cortisol levels to her child possibly leading to low birthweight and impaired motor control early in life. If the infant is exposed to a stressful environment early on, they might experience poor core development due to the vagal response controlling their diaphragm.

With poor core development, the child is faced with any sort of compensating movement patterns that are not ideal. But there are other contributing factors.

Trauma

“Up to 45% of new mothers have reported experiencing birth trauma” -2018, Journal of Perinatal Education

This statistic is scary to say the least. But it might make sense given the fact that roughly 40% of women are given the drug Pitocin during child birth. Pitocin is a drug that increases uterine contractions and is thought to help speed up childbirth. However, that’s not always true. Actually taking Pitocin might drastically interfere with your body’s natural ability to give birth by throwing off rhythmic contractions, dangerously stress out the baby, and (what commonly happens) lead to emergency cesarean delivery.

If it’s traumatic for the mother, imagine what it’s like for the baby. Vaginal birth is extremely beneficial, especially because it creates appropriate pressure to the lungs and head, and coats the child with the microbes that will sustain them for the rest of their lives. C-section bypasses all of that, and instead puts a lot of stress on the baby’s physical structure (YouTube: c-section).

Of course, most of the time, the mother doesn’t want any of this, but she gets pressured to do it because she will do anything to save her baby. If this is you, it’s okay. Your child will be fine and live a wonderful life still. But, you might want to consider a midwife for your next child to avoid this mess again. You might be surprised at how safe and efficient midwives are..

So we are now entering the chiropractic realm, because traumatic births are one thing that chiropractic adjustments can alleviate quickly. Birth can affect the movement and alignment of the spine, which if left unresolved (sometimes it can resolve naturally) can have an impact on the muscles and movement patterns during the first year of life. And yes, chiropractic adjustments are completely safe for children of any age.

Tummy Troubles

No doubt you’ve heard of the phrase leaky gut. Well, all children are born with extremely leaky guts, and it’s not until 6-12 months that the gut wall seals up enough to tolerate people food. The general rule of thumb should be, if your child has 8 or more teeth, then it’s safe to give them food. I think this offers much more direction than the 6 month rule, because some kids really can’t tolerate solid foods at that age.

If there are gut issues before the age of 1, then there will be inflammation that inhibits proper core development. Without a functional core, then all movement patters will become compensatory. If this goes on for too long then the child will adopt those new patterns and grow accordingly. (you don’t want this)

Breast milk is ideal for child development. With that being said, a non-soy based formula should be considered if there is trouble with lactation. Goat milk is a good option as well. However, when giving a child formula, you should inspect for intolerance, because they don’t always handle it the same. (constipation, diarrhea, sudden mood changes, irritability)

Baby Steps

You are an animal. You came from the earth and you will return to it one day. We are all this way. And this is good to know, because if you know what parts of you are instinctual you can guide that part of you instead of letting it rule you. This goes for all human instincts, good or bad. You can essentially tame the beast.

It’s only natural that I bring up children after talking about beast, so here we go. A child’s instinct is to move and develop into a walking talking human being. And it is our job as parents, providers, and guardians, to guide their instincts so that they can move as efficiently as possible.

So maybe you have your mom’s hips or your dad’s wonky knees. Instead of playing the genetic card, this could be your chance to change the family curse, through yourself and your kids.

For yourself, try some corrective exercises. Stretch, get stronger, lose weight, pay attention to those areas that maybe didn’t develop as much as they should have when you were an infant.

For your child, figure out where their instincts are being misled. Pay attention to their movement and see if they are moving symmetrically, spending too much time in one position, spending not enough time in a position, or maybe don’t carry them around so much. Children will grow no matter what. You can shepherd them to grow better than you did.

You can break the curse of grandmas scoliosis, because the end result isn’t genetic. It’s the urgency to grow that is genetic. And most of the time, you just need to slow it down.

My wonderful daughter sees me walking, talking, dancing, and eating all the time. But I make sure she crawls before she walks, babbles before she talks, sips before she chews, and dances however she feels like it.

And I call it gene therapy.

-Dr G

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