Tanya

this episode is the third and final installment and a little mini series on chiropractic care. We started with Rachel Mast's birth story in episode nine, when she mentioned having her chiropractors come to her home in the hours, following her birth to work on both her and her baby. Then we had Karlie Causey talk about her work as a chiropractor in caring for postpartum people. And today we have a husband and wife duo Martin Rosen and Nancy Watson, who are chiropractors focusing on all things, newborn, Martin and Nancy. Welcome.

Nancy

Thank you so much. Thanks for having us, Tanya. Yeah,

Martin

Thanks for having us on appreciate the time you're taking to do this and getting this information out.

Tanya

Yeah, I'm so excited to have you guys, because, you know, as a midwife, my national certification allows me to care for newborns for 28 days of life. Right. People continue to come to me with questions and I have to kind of change gears and pivot, and I don't know everything about newborns and I get a lot of those questions that I think you guys are actually way better suited for than I am. So I think we're gonna be able to unpack some things where I, my knowledge base ends and yours begins and really takes off.

So before I get started, I wanna mention to everyone that you have this great book called it's all in the head, which is a book for both practitioners and parents. Um, and you guys do all kinds of trainings for clinicians and all that stuff. But I really wanted to kind of focus in a little bit on this book, since it does speak to both healthcare providers and consumers, and that's who my audience is. This is a shared discussion between both sides of us. Um, so, um, if you wouldn't mind just telling us a little bit about yourselves and kind of kicking it off that way

Martin

Dr. Watson and I met in chiropractic school in 1978, we were both students at his cool gold, she chiropractic college and we met and we were classmates became friends and eventually decided that we wanted to be more than that. So we got married when we were in chiropractic school and got pregnant and we graduated chiropractic school with Nancy being about seven and a half months pregnant.

Nancy

And what we learned, uh, from, even though we have very advanced degrees that we learned from is that your first born is your first experience with a baby. And no matter what kind of training you have, it's, uh, UN daunting, I mean, just daunting to, so, so for us, um, you know, we had to get the training that we needed to take care of our newborn. Um, and that was in 1982. And from there, we have developed a whole system of pediatric chiropractic care that we've been teaching since 1982. And this book that you mentioned, it's all in the head is the first book that we wrote for people like parents, grandparents, or any, any person that's dealing with babies. Cuz what we're finding is that people do not know what normal is as so many things are happening with babies. And with mothers that we take sometimes what is common to be, what is normal.

Martin

You know, we had this, this beautiful little baby and we had gone to chiropractic school and we understood how important it was to, you know, have their spine and cranium checked. And I realized no one taught us that like that's where our journey started is we really had to learn how to do what the chiropractic philosophy said on infants and children. And that started us teaching and learning. And um, you know, and so we've been doing that for 40 years and she'd write the book is we find so often that people come in thinking that what's going on with the child and said, oh, you know, my friend down the road said their child did this. And my friend Nicole on the corner said, yeah, my kid, you know, my kid didn't, her kid did poop for seven days or her kid wasn't able to latch and feed it, you know?

So we kind of gave up and, and you hear all this stuff that is common. And we have to say, no, that's not normal. You know, it's, if you choose to nurse, it's normal for your kid to be able to do that. You know, it's not normal for your child to have a bowel movement once every 10 days, you know, you know, it's, there's certain milestones that your children need to hit certain developmental things that we see. And also also just the way kids look the shape of their head, the shape of the cranium, the way their jaw moves way, the eye looks there is a big difference between what you see a lot out there and what is actually normal and healthy.

Tanya

you guys are taking me right through everything I wanted to talk about, which is amazing. Uh, but I wanna like pause for a minute because I would love to dig a little bit deeper on a few things. First. I wanna say common, but not normal is something I say every single day to people. And I like adore people who use that phrase because I think it really like speaks to a certain level of understanding that we take so many things for granted. Right. And that's, that's just like pooing people and poo pooing their concerns because you don't have the answer as a practitioner. Right? Exactly. So that, that's so important that we really figure out what is going on here, regardless of the situation I TA I use that phrase as a midwife. I use it when I'm in personal trainer mode doing fitness stuff. So yeah. It's huge. 

Nancy 

No, just it's great. Yeah. I kind of wanted to say something about that because, um, there are pre-programmed things that are expected in the neurological system and you know, the things that were true in 82 are true in 2000 and true now. But things have changed and the level of anxiety that parents feel, I think, it's important that there's all kinds of parents and some parents are very laid back and they just let their, you know, their children, other parents are so concerned whether their children are on track or not. And I think, I think having clear information about what is normal, um, so they can then E either be like, get the intervention they need or to relax and realize, oh yeah, that that's gonna, that's gonna work itself out. So that's for us, it's about being, um, educating not only the other chiropractors, but also healthcare workers and parents to, and grandparents.

Tanya

So on that note, would you do me a favor and let's talk a little bit about what some of the things are be they physical characteristics or the actual milestones that parents can actually look for to feel calm and reassured that everything is normal.

Martin

Okay. So there's a neurological window of opportunity that we call it. And within the first year and a half of life, almost all your milestones should be reached, or at least by age two, all the primal reflex of all the milestones you reach. They fire up at specific times. So babies are supposed to be able to lift their head within the first three months. If they can't lift their head by themselves, then they can't roll over. If they can't roll over, then they can't learn to sit up. If they can't sit up, then they can't learn to creep and crawl. And if they don't creep and crawl well, then they don't get the coordination integration to stand walk. And each one of these milestones are not only neurologically integrated, but they're also socially integrated as your baby gets to expand more like when they can lift their head up, they see more of the world.

When they sit up, they can see more of the world. It helps them be able to socially interact. So not on the milestones about neurological development, it's about social development as well. So within the first 18 months of life, and actually the first two years, 90% of your nervous system is being laid down. Basically the pathways, the gray matter, the white matter. So that's all forming and the connections that your brain is making the highest propensity for those connections occur within the first eight months. So you're building a foundation and any, if you're building a house, if you're buying a car, if you're planting a garden, whatever you're doing, you want the foundation to be as strong as possible.

So if we take these kids and we let things that are common slide, by the way what we're doing is we're giving them a weaker foundation. So when the kid is three, four or five years old, they start to get all these symptoms or these issues or the behavioral issues and all this stuff was things that happen within the first 18 months, that if somebody had stopped, looked and done some intervention at that point in time, the odds are most of these other issues would not have come up later on.

Tanya

So let me ask a question. Um, what I'm hearing you say, right, is that one milestone must proceed the next yes. In order to progress normally. Yeah. We know that there are cases where babies skip over something. Yes. They can skip them. Can you talk a little bit about what meaning that holds, if any,

Nancy

So are you talking about physical milestones? Like the sit, some kids that they don't crawl, they go right to walking,

Tanya

Right? That's certainly the example that came to mind. But if there's a better one, I'm all ears.

Martin

Well, no, that's actually the most prevalent one. And the reason why that is such a difference is because you can sit, you can build up the muscular skeletal strength and you can go from sitting to a stage of walking without creeping and crawling the problem. The loss there is neurological integration is their nervous system isn't developed or coordinated correctly because they never got to integrate both sides of the brain. Yeah.

Nancy

And I think that's why the big focus on tummy time now is, is because babies need to spend time on their stomachs because not only will they learn, have the neck control, but they'll go through that stage of creeping and crawling. So many of the things like the carriers and stuff that they have them in, it, it, you know, or if they don't have time, enough tummy time, they may open sitting to standing. We don't think that's a good idea.

Martin

You know, the the analogy I like to use is like, so animals in the wild, right? And the, in the jungle, or even animals like horses and cows, large animals, when they're born, they can walk within a certain few hours if they can't walk, if you live in the jungle in the Serengeti or something, and you can't walk, then you're dead. And so their milestones are, and what's what they develop. They're primal issues. They they're in the primal brain, they're primal for your development and your survival. And when you, so when you think of that, you don't want to skip a milestone. That is, that is basically programmed into your survival mechanism, cuz that's gonna create a compensation somewhere else in your nervous system later on that you will pay the price for. Yeah. And that's what the problem is.

Nancy

We have seen that with some children that have difficulty converging or learning to read or a number of attention issues, um, oftentimes they didn't creep and crawl or at least in creep and crawl for a long period of time. And we will actually put them on exercises to, they can learn that cross patterning. So it's better to learn it before they walk, but I you're right. It does happen. And uh, we encourage more tummy time so that at least they get enough, creep and crawling.

Tanya

So in addition to the exercises that you might prescribe in a given situation, tell, can you tell us a little bit about what it looks like for the onlooking parent when you're actually working on their baby and how that, how, what you're doing relates to whatever it is that's going on and their development.

 Martin

So any child that comes in, whether it's for a well baby visit, or if they're neurologically challenged or they have particular issues, whether it be nursing issues or digestive issues or infection, whatever it is, we do a complete exam. This exam includes chiropractic evaluation protocols, neurological protocols, and functional protocols. And the whole idea of the exam is to get a baseline of how their nervous system is functioning. So we have then a picture of how that child's nervous system is developing. And what we do in chiropractic is we do what we call chiropractic adjustments in our world. We do adjustments to both the spine and the cranium. Now the pediatric chiropractic is a whole different art form. It's just like you wouldn't go to a geriatric cardiologist with your newborn. You go to a pediatrician. So the same thing is true. If you have a baby that you wanna bring you born to bring her to a pediatric chiropractor, it's a whole new set of skills.

And what we do is we look for imbalances in the system or that are creating abnormal tension, abnormal function. And we make what's called an adjustment, which is a very low force procedure to help remove that interference to the nervous system. So the best way I can think about it is there's a system in the body called the D angel system. And it's a tension mitigated system that attaches to the nerves, to the bones, to the muscles and the Fosia and the nervous system is deposed to develop at a certain tone. So for example, if you have a guitar and you have a, a string attached to the top and a string attached, you know, on the Fred one to the bottom, if you change the tension in that catastrophe, you change the tone, the vibration of it. And there's a certain vibration that you want. Well, in the nervous system, there's tissue that attaches all the way from the top of the skull, all the way down to the tailbone. And if that system or that tissue is called, the D system is too loose or too tight, it changes the way the nervous system can basically vibrate or function. And so our job is to change that tension the system. So basically we tune it to the right tone so that it could function at its optimal level.

Tanya

So your analogy for the lay people was the guitar string. Right? Right. So it's like, you're saying, it's like when you loosen the tension exactly on that guitar string and that's when you do manipulations on a baby, which as I understand it are significantly more gentle than when we do manipulations on adults. Right.

Martin

It's a whole different skill set. Yes. Oh yes.

Tanya

So yes. Can you tell us a little bit about what it might look like, like an actual patient scenario, if you have one available that comes to mind, um, when a, when somebody comes to you with something that they've identified and, and what does it look like to see change? Is it subtle, gradual require lots of time or is it something that happens very quickly?

Martin

So the answer, all those questions is yes. <laugh> I really quickly sometimes it, so, so that's the whole idea of doing an evaluation. So I get a baseline. So let's say for example, I had a little boy that came in that was brought to me because, and I don't know why I'm on the poop thing, but because it was three months old and had not had a normal bowel movement in 20 days, the parents went to the pediatrician and said, um, you know, that's normal to worry about it. And of course the mom went, that's crazy. That's not normal. So she brought the baby in and we did the examination. We brought her back in for her valuation, her first adjustment. And after the first adjustment, she pooped within 24 hours. And that, so that was very quick, but we've also had kids who were brought in with like chronic ear infections. I had a little, a little baby that was just brought in and they had had for the first year of his life set four ear infections. So have chronic chronic ear infections. So that sometimes takes a longer process, but

Nancy

It's like anything else to deal with that if you're an adult and you've never had body work and you come to a chiropractor at age to say 55, you know, you may get, it may take you longer because there's been trauma and all kinds of, uh, layers of compensation over that. Even though it may, you may think it's a simple thing with a baby. It really depends. It depends on the birth. The birth has been difficult. It's so many things, uh, a factor in the toxic level. Um, as I said, every newborn that comes to see us and we see, we see many, many babies. Um, we do the full evaluation. There is a certain expectation, um, from the parent as well as from us that we will see changes. Right. Um, and, and, and if we're not seeing them, then we take a look at, um, how we're approaching it. But something like flat CEP, which is like a, like say a Flathead. So many babies have that. And so, you know, if after a series of adjustments, we should be seeing some change. If not, then we're gonna look at lifestyle. We're gonna see how they're having the baby lay at night or during the day. So we're gonna look at the things that are gonna be contributing factor to why something may or may not change. But, um, with, with children, with young children, we do expect to changes relatively quickly, um, because the nervous system…

Martin

So, you know, to what we, the reason we do the exam is so we can monitor it, right? So if a new baby comes in and I'm gonna say that, um, they need some intensive care for six weeks, I'm gonna monitor them in within two weeks of their first time, they come to the office, look into a reevaluation to see if the, the parameters are changing. And a perfect example is plagiocephaly. Someone comes in with a 10 millimeter distortion, plagiocephaly…

Nancy

Explain what that is.

Martin

Well, plagiocephaly, flathead. You just explained that.

Tanya

You're a husband and wife team, for sure. <laugh> oh, yeah.

Martin

And so, so, so, so the bottom line is every two weeks, I'm gonna remeasure to make sure there's changes. Ah, I see. It's not then I'm, I may either look, as Nancy said at other parameters, or I may refer them out to a practitioner for something like a helmet or something that they may need so we are, always monitoring parameters.

Tanya

Yeah. I it's, you guys are, you guys are on the same page as me. We're on the same wavelength here, because everything that I was planning to ask you, you get to like right before, I'm about to ask you, which is pretty incredible. So I was absolutely going to ask you about how that treatment works, because look, looking at a baby in a helmet makes sense. But I think people have a hard time understanding how the manipulations that you do gentle as they are, can change the shape of the skull. Like, can you unpack that a little bit?

Nancy

We change the term manipulation though.

Martin

Well, well, so, so we just, we use the term we use as adjustment only because manipulation is a global term used by other practitioners as well. So we, but, so, so when you think about a helmet, so what they do with the helmet is they put the helmet on your head and where there's a flat spot. All right. They leave a space for the helmet and where there's a bulging spot. They put foam against it. So it push it and it forces the cranium to mold. So when the first year of life, the cranium has sutures and it's like a tectonic plates, they all can shift around. So they make an external change in the pressure. What we do as chiropractic is change the internal mechanism. 

Nancy

I think you're asking, asking how we do that and how we do that is through the indicator system that we teach. So, in other words, we're not guessing, we're not guessing where that, where that tension is. We we've done an examination. We, we read the indicators of that nervous system and that, whether it be an adult or child or whatever it is, we read that. And then we work with those indicators to change the dural system. So we'll know if it changes based on the indicators, if they change.

Tanya

I'm gonna make up an analogy for our, cause. I feel like it's gotten a little heady for our listeners, which it it's fair. This is complicated stuff. And we do have practitioners listening who might be like you really, really hooked, but we might have patients listening who are like, what is happening here. Exactly what I'm hearing to make an analogy to something that I talk about on this show a lot. Cause we talk a lot about the pelvic floor and the way the pelvic floor works. And we talk a lot about how some people might have knee pain and you know, these two things seem unrelated, but guess what? They're probably not. And sometimes we have a baby that won't get into a good position and it's because we've got pelvic bones or muscles that are too tight or too weak on one side. But it sounds to me like you're doing without getting into the weeds about how a chiropractor does the work that they do, which is sort of magical, is you're realigning different parts of the system, similarly to how a PT might or, or a chiropractor doing Webster technique might align the pelvis and things like that. Is that fair.

Nancy

Yeah. Yes. And, and we're looking for the linchpin. So when we don't wanna be, you know, adjusting, especially on a sensitive neuro, like a baby overstimulating them. So we're looking for the linchpin that will do the most amount of work with the least amount of interference. Cause that's, cuz that's.

Martin

Yeah, but it's good. I mean, your, your point is really very well taken. You know, if you, even, if you just look at a little child like a three year old standing up and they're standing and one foot is turned in and one hip is high and one shoulder is rotated and you look at that, you can see the tension in their system. And if you can change those balance, not only do you change the structure, but you change the underlying influences, what you're talking about, like the muscles, the fascia and the spine, the D

Tanya

So another common condition that a lot of my clients are having. And I don't know if there's an increased in incidence of this in modern times, but is torticollis. Yeah. Is, is that something that's actually happening more often in the way that plagiocephaly is?

Martin

So my personal opinion is that we are seeing many more interventions in the birth process. Um, whether they be forceps delivery, vacuum deliveries, um, inductions. And I think the birth process is becoming more for lack of a bit of term violent, more intense it's it's becoming less of a natural process in a lot of places. And that puts stress on the baby and the mom. And that's why I think we're seeing incidences of these issues. You know, we, we used to talk about things like C-section deliveries, you know, in the, in the sixties and seventies, the average C-section eight and across the country was six or 8%. Now it's up to 38%. So we're having a lot of interventions, a lot of stresses, and that affects the baby. So yeah, I think we're seeing many more torticollis, plagiocephaly simply the reason is kind of simple in the nineties, the American Pediatric Association, freaked people out, told them, don't put their baby on their, you know, don't let you baby sleep on the stomach, cuz they're going to get since within sudden infant death syndrome. Um, and there are other facts, so people stop doing that. Right? You started doing that. And so if you keep the baby locked in one position, whether it be in a swing or a car seat, because people that incorporates plagiocephaly and the, like I said, the, torticollis, the more traumatic, the birth process, the higher that propensity.

Tanya

Okay. So just again for our listeners, we did not define torticollis. I think I'll let you guys do that. You wanna explain what that is?

Martin

So torticollis what you see as a parent is you'll see that your baby either has a head tilt or tends to favor one side all the time and we'll turn and does it like to turn to the other side? And so Toco is basically a torticollis is tension in the upper neck that doesn't allow the head to move equally, both sides or does it sit straight on the shoulders? It tilts to one side,

Nancy

You'll see a baby that will not only nurse on one side. There's all kinds of indicators of, of that. Yeah.

Martin

Um, well every time the baby put the baby in the car seat, they lay with their head to the right. Yeah. They never turn it to the left. Yeah. Or even on tummy time, you'll see it with babies who wanna call tummy times, they'll pick their head up, it'll be tilted and they'll turn easier to one side than the other. And the problem with incorrect not correcting that is when they get to the next phase of the next milestone, which is rolling over, it becomes more difficult with them to call us.

Tanya

All right. Thank you for that explanation. Okay. So we don't freak our listeners out too much. I wanna talk about some things that are really normal, but that are real struggles in everyday life, right? Things everybody goes through who, who, you know, look not everybody's gonna have plagiocephaly or torticollis, but every parent wants to sleep. Every parent and babies that don't sleep make for parents that don't sleep. And rumor has it that you guys have the power to impact sleep in babies. Can you tell us what that looks like?

Nancy

Well, oftentimes what's, uh, driving the not sleeping is that babies are often born into a sympathetic state. So they're, they're just turned on all the time. It could be, uh, the birth process itself. It could be anything that's irritating them. So for us, especially baby, we, we work with the cranium, the cranium and the sacrum, they control the parasympathetic or the rest, you know, rest resting system. So by resetting the system and calming them down, it definitely helps with them sleeping, or anything and pooping, or anything that has to do with, rest and restoring. So yes, but, but the truth is lo not a baby is gonna sleep eight hours a night. Some parents have, you know, kind of ridiculous expectations about that. They do go through a cycle, but I do think a baby that's turned on all the time has a hard time resetting himself to sleep.

Martin

It's, it's about creating balance in the nervous system, right, like they said, there's a two parts of the system. There's a sympathetic in Paris and it's supposed to change interchange. And sometimes when the nervous system is too irritated, the baby can't get outta state. Like often they're wake up and sleeping cause they're uncomfortable. Right. And sometimes it's, it is college. Sometimes it's reflux. Sometimes it's just tension. We had a little, I had a, a baby brought in and the mom, I have to say, I felt very sorry. The baby slipped an hour and a half max anytime during the day, night, every hour and a half was up, was up, was up, was up, was up baby. And, um, you know, and the only way the baby would nurse would be if it was lying next to the mom in bed and sleeping.

So it was it was horrific for her. And the problem was number one, when we checked the baby out, is that the baby had some really, if you think about your nervous system being too tight, if you think about being too tense, like you all had stiff necks or sore shoulders, but when a baby has something like that and there's too much tension in their spine, they have no outlet to express that except to cry or to try and move around and try and change that. So if we could find those areas that are creating that kind of tension that we release, that they calm down, they calm down. Right? So this mom who was only able the baby was sleep, been every hour and a half after the first adjustment she came in and she just had had this look at her patient. She goes, she just slept 12 hours straight. And I said, I said, look, I said, that's great. Don't expect that. I said that, but you know, after, after a couple of weeks of can, the baby was on a regular cycle, it was sleeping six hours.

Nancy

I think, I do think that baby's exhausted. I mean, and, and so, and it becomes a family issue. If someone in the family is not sleeping, then that whole family is not sleeping. So it's it's and then if you're not sleeping, then you're not thinking clearly. And, and then there's a level of stress that, so it's a really family issue. And when a baby's not sleeping well.

Martin

When anything's wrong with a baby.

Nancy

When anything's wrong with, but I do, I do think it's true. Like, is this to soothe? So, so like that baby was obviously exhausted and slept 12 hours. That's not normal either.

Tanya

How much of the work that you do involves giving the families homework that they then need to be doing when they're not in the office with you?

Nancy

I think it depends on the age of the child, you know, and also how much the parents can take on. And so, yeah, so certainly like in older children, they may need some kind of, uh, reprogramming exercises. We do give those to a parent after a certain period of time, we're gonna see what we can do with their nervous system before that. But, I would say,

Martin

Yeah, I would say that what we do is we start up by seeing what happens, um, by just making the adjustments. And then let's say somewhere around six weeks into care, when we do a whole reevaluation, we'll sit down with the parent and we, you know, and talk about what's changed. What has it, where you're going? The area we live in in Boston has a lot of services. So I am not an expert OT or PT or a speech pathologist or any of that stuff. But what I will do is if I get to a point where someone comes in with a particular issue that is getting better, but not resolving, then I may say to them, look, you know, Johnny's doing X amount better, but I think now would be the time to add OT or now it would be design, seeing a speech therapist.

What I find is whenever we refer or get referrals from some kind of what functional doctor, who's working with children, that once they get adjusted and the nervous and clears out, the amount of progress they make is tenfold. Like they'll be working with them. And all of a sudden they'll make leaps and bounds in whatever their speech or make sleep and bound in their coordination. Cuz we are mostly dealing with the underlying structure. So to answer that question, percentage wise, I personally, at this point in my career, probably give, instruction maybe 10 to 15% of the time, the time I'll either find it's not necessary or I'll refer to a professional who is much more versed and that's their focus. Work together. You know, it's like the baby comes in with tongue tie, right. I'll evaluate them. And there's different levels of tongue tie.

Tanya

That's exactly what I was thinking about. When I asked you the question, this is crazy. Like we're like this it's wild.

Nancy 

That's tongue tie.

Tanya

That's exactly. Cause I was thinking about how time consuming exercises are for that. Right. And parents get really overwhelmed. And so I was now like, oh my God, now we're dealing with the whole body. Are you giving them a bunch of exercises? <laugh>

Martin

No. So tongue tie's a really great example of that. So there are, like I said, there are three levels of tongue tie. There's what they call posterior where it's all the way back. There's the middle tongue tie and there's an anterior tongue tie for those of you don't know what tongue tie is. It's, there's a little piece of skin that will call the frenulum that holds your tongue to the roof of your mouth. So it doesn't go flapping out of your mouth and it's supposed to attach at a certain point. In some cases it attaches too far towards the tip. And if it does that, you can't use your tongue correctly. So the answer to that, if I have a baby who comes with anterior tongue tie, then having troubled nursing and they can't stick their tongue outta their mouth, the way they do, they get the little heart shape or it points to the ground, those children, I almost, I not almost, I always recommend they have a revision because that can't function right.

Tanya

Yeah. We've got a really great episode on tongue tie with a midwife. Who's also an IBCLC, and she calls herself the tongue tie experts and she trains providers and patients just like you guys do. So I will be sure to link, uh, that in the show notes for people who want more on tongue tie, who might be hearing it for the first time in this episode. 

Martin

So that's a perfect example. If we see one that's a middle or posterior tongue tie, very often we could skip having their revision cuz the child can adapt to that. We check all the functional parameters around that, make sure the pallet's developing right. They're nursing. Right. You know, all that stuff is happening. So again, in that case, maybe a third of the time we'll have to send them for the revision and then the exercises. So got it. So it all based on, as Nancy said, a number of times how the child comes onto the planet, you know, what are we looking at and what we're looking for?

Tanya

So I think, you know, as we move towards wrapping up, I, I have two more questions for you and they're not necessarily super specific to the actual work you do, but more just your thoughts around this. Okay. I work with a lot of families where the anxiety is really high already right. And it's, it can be very challenging for me to unpack for people what it is I think they need to do. Because again, sometimes I'm heightening fears, but there's this like weird balance of needing to be proactive while not fear mongering or making them feel more anxious about things. What advice can you put out there from where you sit on your side of the table, about how parents can watch for these milestones and be proactive, but perhaps maybe minimize some of this anxiety.

Nancy

Anxiety's tough. I mean, especially the last two and a half years, the level of anxiety has just quadrupled and, and, but we think what anxiety is, is anxiety is a sense of uncertainty. So for me, when I think as a, a new parent, it's a huge job. I think for two things, I think education and empowering education, knowing the information and then empowering that you will actually can take care of your child or you can find the services that you need. Those are the two areas that I like is, cuz I do think that once, you have more information, it may calm some of the level of fear that you have. I mean, it's anxiety, it's a fear based response. And so there's level of uncertainty and again, it's a sympathetic response and it's not always the best place to come from because you do use bad judgment.

So for me, it's education and empowering. I'm a parent who feels like they don't have what they need, uh, that can be can, can cause a lot of anxiety. So that's kind of where I do and I, and I, we never belittle apparent. So like if you make a decision that maybe two months down the road, you regret, that's another anxiety provoking thing.  So it's like you can't take back what happened, you can only move forward. So then again, that's just kind of like a loving, empowering space that I like to create for parents when they come into our office and you're right. Anxiety is, is it's free floating. It's everywhere.

Martin

I think, I think for me, the difference is actually listening to the parent. Really, really listening to em and taking wherever they're at and accepting it. And so, you know, there's a thing where, you know, if you walk into an office and you're really upset, really sad, and you have this person bouncing around and go, oh, life is. You're like 12 steps above them. It doesn't work. The idea is to listen to the parent. That's true. Understand what they're saying? Number one, acknowledge the fact that most mothers more often than not their intuition is right. If they think something's wrong, there is so acknowledging that then telling 'em also that you can help and that you have avenues to help. So it's listening, it's empowering and then acknowledging what they, what they say. And they're letting 'em know that there're number one, there is hope and there are things that can change. And that is really the big difference. I mean, we've had, you know, we, over the years, we've had some really horrific, horrific, painful, painful things coming in with parents who just have diagnoses that, you know, would, would rip your heart out, cuz they know that this child is not going to survive normally, but at least letting know that there are avenues that they can use that there are people that are gonna listen, but there are people that will help, excuse me, help them through the process. It says a lot to que the anxiety cuz when you're anxious, you know, you feel alone and anxiety's all about thinking about the future, not what's happening at that moment in time. So if you could bring them back to present time that also reduces the anxiety, you know, come back to the present moment, deal with what we're dealing with now and we can move forward step by step.

Tanya

You sounded an awful lot like a midwife 

Martin

I will admit I'm not as good at that in my personal relationships

Tanya

I can say the same thing, right? Those of us who, who give to a lot of people in life, um, you know, we, we deal with burnout in various ways. That's how I landed here, running this strange midwifery virtual practice and having a podcast because this is how I handled my professional burnout. <laugh>

Nancy

Well, well I will say that there's two pieces that you say the midwives are very special people. They hold a space and also the hospice workers, I mean both. Oh yeah, yeah. Is like to sit in a space and just let that space unfold the way that it is. Mm-hmm that is a real gift. And I, and, and so yeah, I, we are totally

Martin

Midwives. We just love midwives and midwives and doulas. What they do is just, what they do is just, you know, I mean, I I've been to maybe three other births that weren't my children and I'm like, that's enough.

Tanya

I love it. I love it. Well, listen, tell our listeners how they can find more information from you to get more educated and um, maybe how can they find, because you guys are clearly people from Boston <laugh> exactly. Um, and they can't necessarily all come to you, but how can they find people who have learned from you?

Martin 

Do you wanna get link showing me

Nancy

To, well, yeah, so we, you can find us on, on social media, our, our, our, we have websites and we do have a pediatric referral directory of people that have studied extensively with us. Um, there's so many of them,

Martin

Right? So the pediatric referral directory, you can get it on our two of our websites. One is drmartinrosen.com and the other is peakpotentialprogram.com. Both of those are professional websites. They have our professional information, um, that, that certificate, the pediatric certificate class on the referral directory, if you're a patient or a lay person, you wanna find out more about us in just general chiropractic. That is our Wellesley chiropractic website and that's Wellesleychiro.com So those are three places that you can always find us in. Right? We have an Instagram account, you know, hashtag DrMartinRosen. And we have a bunch of Facebook on pages that you can all contact from us. And if you wanna just email us, the email is DrMartinRosen@gmail.com, and we'll try and help you find somebody for you. And if you wanna learn about our trainings, like I said, it's on those two professional websites and yeah, if you have questions, send 'em to us, we will answer them.

Tanya

Thank you so much. And I will be sure to put all of that in the show notes so that people don't have to remember, but thank you so much for this conversation. It's a lot to unpack and I know that we kind of just opened a bit of a can of worms, but hopefully that leads people down the path that perhaps they've been searching for. I know that I can say for myself that I have clients who are hopefully listening right now, who I've recommended chiropractic care for and for whom they have been too nervous about that. For whatever reason. And I'm hoping that this conversation today may have changed some minds and attitudes when people are feeling stuck.

Martin

And, and let them also know that chiropractic care for kids and infants is actually safer. I don't know if it's a great thing, but it's actually safer than adjusting an adult because of the specificity and the low level of adjustment protocols that we use. It's actually one of the safest interventions that you can do for a child. Yep.

Nancy

And if you, so we'll be happy to have anyone find referrals.

Martin

So thank you so much for having you appreciate it podcast. Hi. I really appreciate it.

Tanya

My pleasure.