Postpartum University® Podcast

EP 173 Pregnancy and Postpartum Chiropractic Care with Dr. Stacey Lowe

July 16, 2024 • Maranda Bower, Postpartum Nutrition Specialist

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Ever wondered how chiropractic care can significantly impact the health of postpartum women and infants? We promise you’ll gain new insights into this fascinating topic as we’re joined by Dr. Stacey Lowe, a dedicated chiropractor with over two decades of experience in Wasilla, Alaska.

Discover how Dr. Lowe debunks common misconceptions about chiropractic care and reveals its profound benefits far beyond mere pain relief, particularly for new mothers and their babies.

Childbirth methods can profoundly affect a baby’s development.
Dr. Lowe discusses the ramifications of chemical inductions, C-sections, and rapid births, and how these can lead to fussiness, colic, and developmental delays in infants.
We discuss the natural birth process's vital role in facilitating cerebral spinal fluid movement and the consequences of dural and spinal tension.

This conversation shines a light on the necessity of holistic postpartum care, particularly for mothers who have faced challenging births, and emphasizes the emerging role of alternative health providers in this evolving landscape.

New mothers often face a myriad of physical challenges, from posture shifts during pregnancy to the physical demands of breastfeeding and holding their babies.

Dr. Lowe offers practical advice to alleviate discomforts like upper back and neck pain, pubic bone pain, and tailbone discomfort.

We underscore the importance of specialized chiropractic training to address these unique postpartum health issues, prevent chronic patterns, and improve nervous system function.

Tune in to unlock valuable tips and guidance aimed at optimizing the well-being of both mothers and their infants.

If you found today’s episode insightful and helpful, we would love to hear from you!

Please take a moment to leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform.
Your feedback not only helps us improve but also allows us to reach more listeners who could benefit from this valuable information.


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Don’t miss this essential episode packed with crucial health information and practical advice. Visit www.postpartumu.com for more details and join us next week for more empowering content. If you found today’s episode helpful, please leave a review and share your thoughts. Your feedback helps us reach more listeners and refine our content. Thank you for your support!

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Maranda Bower:

Depression, anxiety and autoimmune symptoms after birth is not how it's supposed to be. There is a much better way and I'm here to show you how to do just that. Hey, my friend, I'm Miranda Bauer, a mother to four kids and a biology student turned scientist obsessed with changing the world through postpartum care. Join us as we talk to mothers and the providers who serve them and getting evidence-based information that actually supports the mind, body and soul in the years after birth.

Maranda Bower:

Hey, everyone, welcome to the integrative therapy session, and today we're going to be talking with Dr Stacey Lowe. She's a chiropractor and has been in private practice for 20 years in Wasilla, alaska. Actually, she has been my chiropractor and my family's chiropractor for over 15 years now. She has an extensive training in pregnancy and infant care, including cranial and TOTS, and she's sitting for the board certified lactation consultant exam this April. I am so freaking excited for that and she's really blending that lactation and chiropractic care and bringing bridging these two together for both moms and babies and dreams of creating the breastfeeding boutique in Wasilla which I am so excited for. So everyone welcome, stacey, hey.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

Molly, so, so excited to have you. Thank you so much. It's very exciting to be here and I can't believe this is the first time that we're sitting down and talking.

Maranda Bower:

Seriously, seriously, y'all, I am probably like I'm in Stacey's office way too much and often probably her most annoying client, Cause I dropped my daughter off close to her. She's laughing Cause she knows right, I, my daughter, has gymnastics close to her office. We're there all the time Cause I dropped her son off after school as well. Like we're, we're friends, we are in this space and I'm like can I have an adjustment? Like I didn't schedule, I'm just stuffing in, but she, her work, is just so incredible and you feel the difference and that's why I've been using her for so long. And actually I was just in a mom group and someone was asking about chiropractic care and it was like a solid 90% of people who were hands down recommending it. You have to get this done and the rest who were like absolutely terrified of the idea and I've had clients myself who are really resistant to this. Can you break some of the stigmas around chiropractic care and just share really what?

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

it is that you do. It is really interesting to me because the amazing things I see in my office all the time. I'm always surprised, and we tend to focus on what we know and what we see all of the time. So it's helpful for me to hear you say that, because I can't fathom that that kind of conversation is happening somewhere out there.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

However, the majority of marketing, everything we've ever seen read about chiropractic is when you get in a car accident, it's this, it's that, it's super heavy handed, it's it's a therapy for pain. So I think that is one of the huge aspects of why people are nervous about it, because or they don't understand why it could be beneficial when they're not in pain or they didn't just fall down the stairs. So what chiropractic is is it's the communication between the brain, the spinal cord, all of the nerves in the entire body. Every single segment in our spine needs to have this proprioception, this ongoing communication with location, where it is what it's doing, and those conversations go back and forth between those segments in the brain all the time, nonstop, millions, thousands of times a day. So when there's any area along the spine that isn't moving properly, it's going to start to change that communication, the brain is going to start to dysregulate, it's going to start to get bad information. So that's kind of a really easy breakdown in it. We all get like a computer glitch, we get bad cell phone service. That's what our brain is doing all of the time. So chiropractic care is releasing tension in different levels of the spine, but it's affecting brain function every time, all of the time.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

There's many different facets here. When we're talking about pregnancy care, there are different factors, different techniques based on ligament laxity and with the amazing relaxin hormone that's designed to allow your body to expand and push a baby out. So there are different techniques specifically to address the different ligaments. Round ligaments. There are different techniques specifically to address the different ligaments round ligaments. And postpartum is very similar, because you still have some relaxant but now you have this incredible weight that you're carrying around at the top of your body instead of your belly, and so your center of gravity is thrown off, and so there are different stresses put on the body. Babies are incredible, like, they are all reflexes. They're designed to like root automatically, like come out, looking around, shaking. You know, startling, not shaking. Um, there's their startle, which helped you get out to begin with. And then they are um there's. They're designed to eat and poop and sleep and grow, and so they're. It's really easy to affect changes in their bodies because they're more receptive to it.

Maranda Bower:

All of that is really beautiful and I really want to draw attention to the fact that we're talking about motherhood and postpartum, but I feel like chiropractic care is so important to that mother-baby diet as well, and I see so much benefit. Actually, this is how I started. Chiropractic care with you was specifically for my babies. That's how I came to your office and I had the most amazing natural birth experiences. I was very blessed with home births, but my babies were struggling, they needed support, they needed help, and maybe you can can share a little bit about why that is kind of a normal and how chiropractic care helps. That Like what? How do we know if we need chiropractic?

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

help. And how do we have a natural birth with no complications, no interventions? And then there's still something that the baby might need. So it doesn't take a lot of pressure, a lot of shift for the top of the baby's neck, for all the cranial bones for people that really know what the skull does, those bones all move. We see that babies are born with a cone head because they're supposed to be, and then it goes back into more of a round shape after a couple of days. So any of those little tiny nuances that aren't functioning or the cone shape was more pressure. On one side you can tell the baby has one eye bigger than the other. All of those little tiny parts play a huge role into how that nervous system is able to function. And at the top of the neck, the vagus nerve, the nerves that go to the mouth, to the tongue, they affect everything. So we don't always have blatant screaming signs at us, but people take their babies in to get their hearing checked and they don't do it because they don't appear to be hearing. They do it because there's these different aspects of health and growth that we want to know are functioning optimally, so that it's easier. So they just row with ease and an assessment, an assessment for an infant.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

You know it used to be that the majority of the babies that I worked with about 50% of the babies who were born like you described no interventions, natural, nice and easy. 50% were good to go. I would check them out. I do a thermography scan, a heart rate variability scan. They were great. And then 50% needed something still and it didn't mean.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

You know, it was a lot of things. And then as soon as you throw in interventions or medications, or mom's pelvis didn't open up or she had to be lying on her back where her pelvis was locked down, and then that's a different force put on the baby just to get out. And then C-section babies, that's an extra amount of force and shifting that they have. So kind of how the birth is laid out, gives me ideas about how much they might interference they might have or how much care they might need. But I don't ever shoot for fine. I want optimal growth and development, and so in my world every baby should be checked because then you'll always know, you won't be wondering gosh, I wonder if they're spitting up all the time because there's an area in their mid back and they're at top of their neck, that are subluxated, not moving the way they're supposed to, and that's affecting their digestive system. You would know like, gosh, we've done all of this part, cool. How do we course correct and how do we get the best outcomes for baby?

Maranda Bower:

And what about for mom? Because I know in pregnancy and postpartum I hear all the time people say, oh, it was my third or my fourth, and it was like the worst. And here I am. I had my fourth pregnancy almost five years ago and it was the only pregnancy that I was able to have chiropractic care and support from early on throughout my entire pregnancy and postpartum, and it was by far the easiest pregnancy I have ever had, the most less painful pregnancy ever. So how does it really help? Again, I know we're talking about pain, but there's so many other factors where this can be really really beneficial too.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

You know pain, we live with pain. People get used to pain. We just we've boiled the frog for so long on this subject where all of these little aches and pains become chronic, but that's no big deal. I can still do my daily stuff. Pain releases chemicals in our bodies that affect how a baby's endocrine system develop pain. Chemicals alone that's a big deal and it really goes to the.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

Why doesn't everybody deserve to feel in ease in their bodies? Why do we have this idea that it's oh well, you're pregnant, of course it's going to hurt. Of course it's going to hurt here and there. Oh well, you just had a baby, of course everything's going to hurt. Your hair is going to fall out. There's just so many of these common, not normal things that we've put out there. And women I don't want to put us all in that same category, but we care for others and not for ourselves. Very well, we kind of suck at that often.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

And so, from a pregnancy aspect, there is the pain part, because that's real, but there's a part of pain that's supposed to happen.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

There's somebody growing inside of you, pushing your organs around and causing your hips to expand, some with the relaxant hormone.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

So there are some normal things that you should expect to be uncomfortable with, but not a sharp stabbing pain, nothing like that.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

From a structural standpoint, the pelvis and the sacrum are aligned and held together by all the ligaments and muscles. And if the if you have a hip that's just a little bit off, then that round ligament attaches to your pubic bone and goes directly to your uterus. So you're not going to have the optimal amount of uterine growth space there because your pelvis is blocking it and it's shifting it. And then if you add a birth where you're on your back and you're in stirrups or you're on your back for whatever reason, that locks the pelvis out even more so. The neurological, the autonomic system part, which is the part that controls our organs, our glands, our blood vessels, the chemical cascade that happens for labor to happen naturally is incredible and can be blocked if the upper cervical spine has any restrictions in the motion of the vertebra, if that is affecting the nervous system, then that can slow down labor and labor can't progress as rapidly. I've seen statistics that say 25 to 30% less labor time when somebody's pelvis is aligned and they've been getting chiropractic care.

Maranda Bower:

Which is funny because my last birth was also my fastest, at 55 minutes, yeah, so which was absolute for me, which was really, really wonderful. I know that doesn't work for everyone, obviously, but that was what my body needed and wanted and that was wonderful. Can you give us some examples of what are some things that we might experience, whether in pregnancy or postpartum, or witness in our baby? That would be red flags that say, hey, I really need some, I need a chiropractor to look at this.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

So the biggest things are they're not able to latch and there's a variety of reasons because this has been tricky for me as a chiropractor and then with lactation part added in. But there can be babies that are born early, that mouths are really tiny, you know. I mean there can be some of those things. However, for the most part that's not the deal. The deal is they have a little bit of a misalignment. I use my hands they have a little bit of a misalignment at the top of the neck, then they're not able to turn really well one way.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

Or the other, babies that have head preference, where they're only on one side or the other, um bruising, any bruising on the baby's body indicates that there was some sort of trauma and pressure, undue pressure put on their, on their bodies inside Um, um or coming out. I mean I've seen a lot of things. I've seen some babies born with forceps. Any kind of um, chemical um inductions, that's a, that's something right away. Um C-sections and really fast births have a lot in common in that if the baby's head didn't get the molding, the, the pumping together part, that's what stimulates the cerebral spinal fluid through all of the different bones in the skull and the spine, and so they can have some similar signs like, like, like, very fussy, don't seem at ease in their own body. They call it colic. Generally it's a collection of symptoms where they're crying and we don't know why. But if they don't get that pumping action, and then when people are like, oh, my baby's head was perfectly round right away, that's always a sign that that I look for as well.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

Babies that can't curl their knees up underneath their body and go into fetal position, that's a huge sign. Babies that hold their head up right away, like really strong appearing, they can lift their head up and look around a little bit, but it can't stay up there. And if it is, it means that there's dural tension, there's spinal tension, holding their head up, and then those are the babies that tend not to crawl, which is what happened during COVID, which is why the CDC removed crawling as a milestone, because these babies were born with extra tense situations, sympathetic overdrive, a lot of parents, people. We were all in fight or flight to different extents because of all of the unknown, and they called it COVID strong, the hashtag COVID strong and all social media. My baby was born able to look around the room and then they missed those developmental milestones.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

So so much with what I do with the. I work with moms before they get pregnant, and then during and then after, and the babies. I've started to see it as like this infinity symbol, like every single aspect of it goes around and joins the next. And I've worked with moms who've had difficult births and then their babies cried a lot and then they don't want to have another baby because they're terrified of it, and so then that postpartum care is really huge and necessary as well, huge and necessary as well.

Maranda Bower:

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Dr. Stacey Lowe:

You know there are, there are red flag things, Um, but then there's also like it makes sense. You know it just makes sense because so much of what mom does is focused on having the baby and everything I do while I'm pregnant is for the baby, it's for the baby and you're the. If we just look at a mom's body from the step, from a center of gravity standpoint they've got baby belly down in the front it tends to cause their head to come forward more, Sometimes their toes, they start to walk, towing out because it's more comfortable, and so that puts a stress on all of the joints and the center of gravity, Like I like that word today, apparently center of gravity, that term. But then they have the baby and then now all of a sudden they are, they're awake a lot, they're up there, they're bending forward, working on breastfeeding, which I always tell a mom like hey in the beginning like you do whatever you physically, structurally need to do to get the baby to start eating.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

Then we can fine tune your posture and work on you more. But it doesn't take very much, very off very long for somebody to have their head out in front of their body looking down, before all the muscles all along their entire spine are going to start to have to work too hard and then they're going to start to hurt and burn and and it's just kind of written off as Yep, that's, you know what's supposed to happen. And obviously it's a huge. It's a stress I hate to say stress, because sometimes that's always, that's always looked at negatively. But when you have a huge demand on the body and you've got some ligament laxity and you're not sleeping very good and it's all new and you're trying to figure it all out, why not have as much brain regulation during that time as you can?

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

And the way I describe pregnancy care is as your baby continues to grow, the adjustments help your body adapt to that so that they have optimal space and you have as much ease in your body. It's the same thing afterwards because instead of the baby down in the belly, the baby is now up in your arms, your upper back your neck. That tension, women tend to throw their bellies out forward. That tension. Women tend to throw their bellies out forward um to brace and hold the baby up top and and this is with a baby that's like at ease this doesn't mean this isn't the mom who has to bounce her baby 10 hours a day because otherwise they scream. If they don't, that's then there's other factors. So for a postpartum mom, um, some of is just, it's just like the same type of training and workout you would do. You just know that this is going to help my body move better. But the science that you could look for, I mean, um pubic bone pain, um, any can't hard to sit because um, sometimes, sometimes the tailbone's got some um positional issues afterwards. Um, there's so many ligaments that attach down to the sacrum, that go to the pelvis as well, that if those are imbalanced it's going to be, it's going to be painful um headaches sometimes the pushing um just from a pushing standpoint alone, you can strain um the muscles in your neck.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

I've had ladies who bled after I started to adjust them after postpartum, because they had retained placenta. That one was mind blowing for me. Mind blowing. They weren't at a danger point. They didn't have a fever because I saw them like two days afterwards. The biggest thing that women usually notice right away is that upper back, neck pain or tailbone pain, like when we're talking about from a pain aspect. But as soon as these ladies start to realize, oh, wait a second, my upper back can feel better because it's a two steps forward, three steps back in the beginning, with looking down and breastfeeding and and holding the baby, and and one of the things I do with the lactation services is I teach women how to prop themselves up first and then bring the baby up. And in the beginning, when you're trying to figure it out and the goal is just get the nipple in the mouth, then you're going to do that in whatever position. But that's not sustainable for a mom to have to dangle feed or to or to do some crazy maneuver to get there.

Maranda Bower:

Yeah, we call it nursing back right, like oh, I've got that nursing back and like it's some sort of normal thing that we're yeah.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

And you know, when I see women like some women get it you know they're like man. This felt like really good during my pregnancy. This is amazing, and so they continue after and they notice how amazing it is. But a lot of the moms I get are on their second, third or fourth baby and they can't play on the floor with them anymore. They're, they're, they're mid back pain. The usual pain has gone from. It's just tight. Which tight is on this pain spectrum?

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

tight and stiff, and then it goes to it burns, because I all ask all the time so is that like this burning feel? Yes, and then moms are doing that reach around in the vehicles, like when they're driving all the time. So does that make this burning feel? Yes, and then moms are doing that reach around in the vehicles like when they're driving all the time. And that's how I mean. I've had many reach around injuries and it's because we get used to not having full functioning movement of our our extremities and of our neck, of our spine. We get used to it because we can still get some stuff done. Why spine? We get used to it because we can still get some stuff done.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

And why women and I've had women compare themselves to a woman who's really struggling in the postpartum depression realm or they're really struggling. Oh well, I'm not that bad and I'm like well, why do you know You're not that bad? Great. But why can't you be that good? Why can't you be great? Why do you have to settle for 60% or 80% If there's help and things you can do for yourself that put you higher and higher?

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

Because the higher percentage you are functioning and living, your baby is feeding off of that Everything's energy. If you're struggling and you're stiff and you're in pain and your baby cries a little bit more sometimes. That correlation, because they can sense that you're you're not well, you're upset, you're you're stressed yourself. They pick up on stress like nothing else. And because it's all about that communication between mom and baby, and again we jump back to baby Right, but which is is what our society has been doing for too long. It's all about baby. It's all about baby, and mom is kind of oh well, yeah, I'll do my my, take care of myself a little bit too. I mean, I have moms that bring their babies to me afterwards and they're not getting care. Oh, I'll be all right, I'll be all right. Well, you can be all right. But if you're not putting the oxygen mask on first and being as healthy, optimal as you can, then it starts to show up in your daily interactions with your kids as they get older.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

There's a healing phase, for sure, postpartum, but there's also chronic patterns that will start to develop. And then we get into that brain regulation it's called disafferentation where it's that bad telephone game, where the brain is now receiving signals like huh, that area is not moving, let's tighten that down because something's wrong, and then it leads into a total dysregulation. That's been a term that most people are really understanding these days. Dysregulation and then dysautonomia is now diagnosed as a disease on its own. And it's not. It is a chronic pattern of the brain not able to get and check in with the spine and body. So then it starts to lock down and affects all of our organ systems different, because not only does the that spine and the cranium control your pain levels, it controls all of your muscles and it controls every single organ system.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

And if you start to have different symptoms, I went to chiropractic school because I had irritable bowel, I had chronic digestive problems, I had grand mal seizures. I had I lived on antibiotics for allergies and sinus infections and it started to clear up that low back pain that I thought was the normal amount or the eight ibuprofen I would take before I would go hiking because my knee was injured. I mean, it was just incredible. The whole goal was just to get rid of the pain. But you know was kind of painful having your life revolver in a bathroom as well. So and wondering why you had seizures that lasted 10 minutes. So, um, that it that all started to to change and clear up. And when we get out of that pit, we get we I always call it like we're down in the hole let's lift yourselves up to come, you know, to flat ground and then you are. It's easier to make different changes in your life.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

Obviously, I then started learning about eating better. I learned about eating for seizures, I learned all kinds of stuff. But when you're in it, you're in it and you're stuck, and chiropractic care is an amazing way to start to reduce that tension so that your brain can think better and you can start to heal better. And every single like vagus nerve is everywhere, everywhere. Another social media thing, which is wonderful.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

But the number one thing that a baby presents with is vagal dysfunction, like if the baby's not pooping, if they're throwing up, it is all about vagal tone. And then, when that transfers to postpartum, there are different techniques that I've started to incorporate to release that sympathetic over the dominance, that fight or flight mode, so that we can regulate better and go with our day-to-day stuff. And we measure that function in our office as well, in babies too, because I've seen a correlation with a brand new baby with a severe tongue tie and really low heart rate variability, which means their body is not there, they're in. They're born in sympathetic mode, in fight and flight mode and it's weird to think that. But babies aren't just like brand new, fresh, like today's day, one of their entire life and development, like their combination of egg and sperm, mom and dad and their experience in the womb as well.

Maranda Bower:

I feel like so much of what you said is really specific to not just like a specified space of chiropractic care. Where are all chiropractors trained in mom and baby?

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

So all chiropractors are trained in analyzing and adjusting the spine. There are 300, when I went to school 25 years ago there were 370 techniques. So there were all kinds of different techniques. There's very manual techniques, there's soft tissue, there's things that you know. Go to the. You get in a car accident and you go to an office who specializes in car accidents or comp injuries. Their goal is they're coming at it from a functional standpoint. They're going to like we're going to heal this brain strain, this injury, get you functioning, get you back to where you were. Sometimes back to where you were is not optimal nervous system function. So when you're trying to find a chiropractor, though it's I when I see it on the who to use pages all the time.

Maranda Bower:

Oh, I need a chiropractor in Wasilla.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

What are you looking for, Like what kind are you looking for what?

Maranda Bower:

do you?

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

need Do you? Do you want to come in instead of taking 10 Advil and you want to go get an adjustment to like hold the pain off a little bit? That's one thing. Do you want to do? You want to run? Do you want to start to figure out how your entire body works as a unit? You know that's something different to all.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

Chiropractors learn the spine. Not all chiropractors learn the nuances with babies. I actually have some local chiropractors who, when the moms are pregnant, they come here. Because I do the Webster and the Gardner method of analyzing the pelvis, because I do round ligament work and adjust the pelvis, the pubic bone, because I do some of the different things there. They come here and then they go back to the chiropractor who they love, but they weren't doing some specific things. So there is a pediatric chiropractic website called the ICPA. It's icpa4kidscom. You can find chiropractors that specialize or that have all the extra certifications for pregnancy and pediatrics. There are some different levels. There's many organizations out there that have higher level pediatric training. I think that's all I ever do is pediatric training, but uh, I want to get into fertility stuff next. But anyway, uh, that's a whole other deal.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

But every chiropractor isn't the same. And when I see, when I see non-chiropractic ground pages like uh, um, the tongue tie pages and the different things you know, uh, chiropractic gets put into the body work category a lot and I think that's because we are actually working on the body. I mean, that's kind of where that has to come from. But because we are doing specific adjustments, because we are affecting the brain regulation and the nervous system, then to me it's a totally different category. There are wonderful techniques out there and craniosacral therapy is something that's in a whole entity in itself. I mean, it is huge to know every nuance of every bone in the cranium and in all the different areas throughout the spine and the body, throughout the body, where the cerebral spinal fluid pumps are and it's, it's an art that is an art.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

Um, there are a lot of providers I see out there who say they do cranial sacral and then when you look it up you realize they've taken a class or two classes. So that's something to be um aware of. The Upledger Institute is one that is um, who, who, who is there? They're the go-to for cranial sacral therapy. They're massage therapists that can be incredibly skilled.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

I see Thai savvy IBCLCs a lot out there on those pages. As I've done my training and sitting for the test for IBCLC, I can tell you there's like one question maybe on there about a tongue Thai. That is not something that IBCLCs learn, just like speech therapists do not learn myofunctional therapy for the mouth. So you could have a tongue tie and have your child in speech therapy for two years and they're never addressing the fact that their tongue doesn't, cannot lift from their mouth. They're teaching them different adaptive methods.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

So some of these, some of these specialties or some of these different professions require specialized training above and beyond the schooling. So I've done extra training in assessing a tongue and a lip tie. I've done extra training in adjusting and moving cranial bones and there are chiropractic cranial adjustment techniques and then there are cranial sacral, where they hold your head for like an hour, 30 minutes an hour, and instead I'm feeling for motion and function and adjusting it. So there's different realms that way and I know that can be very confusing for people. But there's OTs. We have fabulous OTs around here who are specially trained in myofunctional therapy and we have one who has gone above and does a cranial fascial release, the Gillespie method. So there again it's asking what kind of training do you have? Is there more? And and I'll be a hundred percent honest, in 2005, when I started, you know I was one year into practice I helped babies breastfeed by adjusting their necks and feeling their palate, without extra special training, without extra. You know all of these different nuances. So the different trainings and the nuances um are because of the babies who didn't respond like with a super easy adjustment. Um and you need. There's more to it and um and it's changed. It's changed in 20 years.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

The prevalence of sympathetic overdrive, babies being born, birth interventions, the amount of tension, the medications, the and being told you know they are necessary, sometimes they are necessary. But an induction and an epidural where fentanyl is given, you should expect that your baby is going to have some struggles and need some extra care afterwards. I mean, it's just, it's just what it is. It's a physiological thing that happens. It's not a judgment, it's not. It's not a how. How could you do that? It happens there. It happens, and knowing that and having that knowledge and having the knowledge about what kind of chemicals baby's been exposed to makes a big difference in how quickly their bodies are able to heal and get past that.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

But the icpa4kidscom is one really great way to find a pediatric and pregnancy chiropractor. I mean, I'm always up for helping people with locations. There's another group out there, epic Pediatrics. They do a lot of special training. They work with a lot of kids on the spectrum, so they kind of are more I don't want to say older kids, because obviously they do different.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

But I've done training with Epic Pediatrics as well and when I realized that I wanted to help kids that were on the spectrum, that all of these kids that were having these issues, that were creating such a hard life for their families as a unit and for them and unable to have day-to-day regular lives, that type of practice for me was hard to sustain as a solo chiropractor, and having to schedule kids where there was nobody else around that time wasn't allowing me to help a lot of people.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

So I pulled back and thought well, gosh, if we're working with women during pregnancy and we can help reduce the amount of interventions and help them have really healthy pregnancies, the babies are going to be healthier and then they perhaps are going to have a much easier life and then they can avoid some of the things that happen. It's not the end-all be-all. I'm not saying that a child who's born everything, natural, perfect, might have autism or be on the spectrum at some point. Absolutely, that has happened. However, the statistics show that the less interventions, the less chemicals, the less stress, the healthier a baby or child is and the healthier the family unit is as well.

Maranda Bower:

And that just it makes sense, right? It's not just some jargon, it's not even like doctor talk like that is just common sense, and I love that you are bringing that to this conversation and sharing all of your wisdom here. It's just been absolutely enlightening. I have known you forever and I feel like I've been doing chiropractic care forever as well, and I feel like I've just learned a ton from everything that you shared here. So thank you so much for your wisdom and, of course, we're going to be sharing your information here with everybody. So if you're local, you can get in touch with Stacey. If you're not local and you have questions, get in touch with Stacey. She's a wealth of knowledge and can really help answer your questions and whatever it is that's on your mind.

Dr. Stacey Lowe:

So thank you that's on your mind. So thank you Absolutely. And we have this awesome new portal called Brain, not Bone Alone, and this amazing guru who loves chiropractic has created this portal for us. So on my website there's a nice little spot there that you can ask any questions on, and everything comes up in my beautiful one-stop shop, like I can see it all there. So that's amazing to be able to respond to everybody, cause you know how it is. You get your phone lights up and you're like where did that come from? Is that on messenger? Was that my office message? Was that a text? What is that so true?

Maranda Bower:

And we'll see you soon for an adjustment. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I am so grateful you turned into the Postpartum University podcast. We've hoped you enjoyed this episode enough to leave us a quick review and, more importantly, I hope more than ever that you take what you've learned here, applied it to your own life and consider joining us in the Postpartum University membership. It's a private space where mothers and providers learn the real truth and the real tools needed to heal in the years postpartum. You can learn more at wwwpostpartumucom. We'll see you next week, thank you.