Empowering Women in Chiropractic - Autism Awareness - How Aware Are You?

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Hello everybody. Hello world. It's Dr. B and Elizabeth to wish you a happy what are we Thursday the 20th of April. How you doing, kiddo? I'm doing grand thank you. Okay. ChiroSecure, thank you for this awesome platform to help us educate all of you amazing docs and Practitioners and patients and all of you out there in social media land.

So Elizabeth wanted to bring some information. April is autism awareness summer referring to now as Autism Acceptance Month. Are you in the know This is series number four or class number four on in the Know, and we're gonna bring you some information on. How to help your communities be more aware of what they can do preconception and prenatal wise in order to help minimize neurodevelopmental challenges down the road.

So Elizabeth is gonna go take a nap, so she's good to go for later on. We'll see you later girlfriend. And we are gonna hang out just a little bit. So we have talked in the past in, do your nose, in the. About acetaminophen being a risk factor very much associated with consequences neurodevelopmental challenges and potential consequences of asthma, autism, A D H D.

So go back and listen to that one we talked about, and there's a lawsuit right now, a class action lawsuit against a Met Acetaminophen because of those challenges. We talked about cows milk and how, especially in the pre preemies with that were born preemie and low birth weight, how cows milk is linked with potential neural development consequences.

So that is another thing I want you to keep in mind as we move forward and we're, today, we're going to bring some more pieces to the puzzle together. What I really want you to think of right now, It's said that one in 36 little fiddle farts in this country is said to be on the autism spectrum. Okay?

So we need to really dig in and figure out is it better diagnosis or is there really something trending that's been going on that we are gone to a one in 36 status. Now it's hard to overlook some of those. Cases that are on the spectrum that are very noticeable. It's hard to say that those cases would've been missed years ago, and now our numbers trending higher is because we are more aware and able to pick these cases up and not notice these characteristics.

So we are really seeing a much heavier load neurological. Deficit wise with those kiddos diagnosed on the spectrum now. So what's happening? We have a rise. If you take any single variable that has been put into play in the last couple decades and the association. With regard to the rise in neurodevelopmental challenges, we can take glyphosates, we can take processed foods, we can take technology, we can take insults on the microbiome.

We can take all these individual variables which they are seeing correlate with the rise, but let's put them all together. So that's what I wanted to do today. I want you to take a look at past class shows that we did, and let's put another piece of the puzzle. So what's that piece gonna be? I wanna talk about, obviously the microbiome.

A lot of people know me as the gut doctor, okay? Because I have been on a roll for almost two decades now with regard to the microbiome and the brain. So we know the brain, gut connection, but what we're seeing now we're seeing a trend towards studying and researching, not just neurodegenerative disease.

and psychiatric illnesses and so forth with regard to the gut and microbiome connection. But they're really looking at the microbiome in neurodevelopment. So that was like, yeah, I love it. I love it. I love it. So couple cool things are not so cool things. Studies that have been shown lately is the microbiome of mom, m o m, microbiome of mom obviously affects the microbiome of.

But the microbiome directs traffic in the brain and it directs the cells called the microglia. A lot of msms we're talking about right now, mom, microbiome. Microglia. Okay. Long story short, the microglia are the little immune cells of the central nervous. That's one important factor. So these cells need to work in order to kill off and manage any pathogens or inflammation in the brain.

Number two, those little Dews, those microglia, these immune cells are also responsible for what call neuro pruning. It's like pruning a rosebush. Okay. Hopefully you guys have spring, wherever you're at. I'm in Idaho. We have had very little signs of spring so far. All right. , but hopefully it's coming around the corner.

So we're gonna be pruning rose bushes pretty soon, I hope. And that's important, right? Cuz you prune the rose bushes in order to help foster more blooms and more growth. Same thing happens in the brain. In the first couple years of life, these microglia, these little immune cells are in their pruning extra pathways, so we don't have too much neuro excitation cramming the brain for like this electrical crap storm going on.

They need to pre be pruned back those pathways that we're not gonna use, that's an important thing. They need to focus on the pathways that we are not gonna be needing for learning. Attention, behavior, social engagement, the things that we don't know, the extras, we're not gonna. But here's the fun part, is we know that the gut, the microbiome, another m is responsible for directing traffic of these microglia.

So moral of the story. Mom needs to have a good gut in order for baby to have a good gut in order for a good brain development, because the gut is gonna be controlling traffic in the brain via these MicroG. Okay. So no that's one part that I wanted to share with you. Now, the other thing is a recent study they looked at it, in mice particular, they gave mice antibiotics at the last, at last stages of gestation and early postnatally.

And what they found, especially with oxic. The antibiotic amoxicillin, which is known as a amoxicillin is given lots of times if they don't know what the infectious load is, it's very frequently utilized as a catch-all antibiotic. If they don't know what the pathogen is a or if they want to use it as a stop gap, as a general, throwing pain at the wall kind of thing, just to try to keep an infectious load.

As a general antibiotic until they can culture and figure out what the pathogen is. All right, so it's widely used. What they found is in, if mom uses it, there was an increased likelihood of neurodevelopmental challenges in the offspring because one dose of antibiotics is known to wipe the gut clean.

And what they found, particularly with amoxicillin, Is that it affected the oxytocin gene receptor in the brain. Why is that a big deal? Because oxytocin is your love drug. It is your bonding capacity drug. It regulates vagus nerve. Okay, so let's put those pieces. mom's under too much stress. She gets an infectious load.

She's given antibiotics, particularly if it's amoxicillin. It can alter the regulation of the gene in the brain of the baby that regulates oxytocin, which is needed to bond with the care. and bonding with the caregivers is what brings on board maturation of vagal tone in the baby and allows us to develop social engagement skills, all of which if something goes awry, anywhere in that sequence is associated with neurodevelopmental challenges particularly.

So add that to your list. We talked about acetaminophen, we talked about premature birth, prenatal stress. We talked about cow's milk and how that disregulates vagal tone. And now we're throwing in the PO the potential consequences of a poor microbiome, particularly associated with antibiotic use. So antibiotic use and the microbiome are really being looked.

As concerns during the prenatal period with another potential neurodevelopmental challenge. Okay? Now let's throw another M in there. Motor control A, if we don't address the microbiome, we're not addressing neurodevelopment as a whole, the brain. Okay? We're negating the brain. If we neg, we negate the microbiome, the gut.

The microbiome needs to be healthy in order for us to foster proper fine and gross motor skills. One of the biggest predictors of interest in the infant with regard to autism is looking at their motor skills in infancy or lack of motor. So if we do not have if we are seeing these little fiddle farts delayed or not being able to get into these positions, like bringing their hands to midline, like doing tummy time, like rolling, like sitting up independently.

These are major motor movement patterns that are giving us a red flag of a potential developmental consequence down the. So take that into context as well. So as chiropractors, why does that fascinate, why is that so exciting for us? Because what we can offer is we can clear any potential chronic su spinal subluxations in order to help foster better motor movement patterns and feed the brain information it needs for proper neurodevelopmental pathway.

Okay, so antibiotics. These are good history questions we wanna look at and talk to parents to be about when they come in because we can hopefully put our little spin on on care, look at getting them adjusted, decreasing their stress, maybe some use of probiotics, and doing some gut reorganization or gut rehab in order to help foster.

Better developmental consequences down the road on that offspring. Three things. Three things I want you to keep into consideration in order to help mitigate any of those derailments that might happen if there was antibiotics in use. if there is poor social engagement with the caregivers.

Three takeaways. I want you to start educating your parents with one. Tell me eye to eye time, and we've talked about this before, social engagement is one of the key things that they found with mom and now they're it more with daddy. social engagement skills with caregivers in order to help change the potential trajectory of a autism diagnosis because those social engagement interactions with the caregivers is what's gonna help bring on board enhancing that vagal tone and that vagal stimulation.

So eye to eye contact, preferably tummy to tummy. Get that little fiddle fart from the beginning on the chest, socially engaging eye to eye contact with mom and dad. Okay, then this doesn't happen. Just have to happen. When they're in newborns, we should be looking at this for the first six months of life, as much as you can grab that tummy time by the age of three months.

We want a total of one hour of tummy time in a given day. Not one hour solid, but five minutes here, 10 minutes there, 15 minutes, two minutes, whatever. But you want a totality of about an hour of tummy time and do that with social engagement. So eye-to-eye contact is key. The next thing is infantile directed speech caregivers talking to their infants in infantile towns, singing nursery rhymes, whatever it may be.

But these infantile tone. Connects mom and dad with baby. It's all about connection. If we connect when we're babies, we can connect with ourselves as adults and we then can connect with the rest of the world. And the third thing is tactile input. This is really fun. You can actually I call them baby bonding basket.

or baby bonding boxes, give them as a gift to your pregnant families. All right, cool beans. This is easy. Get a little onesie. A lot of docs I see wanna get onesies with their logo on it. Get a onesie with their office logo and use the frame phrase. I've got eyes for. What does it mean? You teach parents that you want you and that little fiddle fart to have bonding time, eye to eye contact.

It's a great catchphrase. Great way to, to promote your office. Okay, little onesie. Lo office logo. I've got eyes for you. Teach parents eye to eye contact. Next thing think about is sensory brushes. You can get them on Amazon. All right? They're little sensory brush. They've got little use. Most of them have a little indent on the handle part.

Get a sticker with your office logo on it. Put it on that sensory brush. Tactile input on mom's abdomen during the prenatal period is also shown to enhance bonding with the baby and enhance vagal tone in the offspring. And then tactile input postnatally as well. So that's another thing to put in your baby bonding box or basket.

Your onesie, your tactile brush. You can put a mug. Maybe with your office logo and some tea and a journal with your office logo and a pen with your office logo, teaching parents to spend some quiet time during the prenatal period. With their baby to be their off their little fiddle fart that's brewing inside.

All right? And journaling and connecting and journaling and connecting even postnatally. So these are great ideas to get your message out there, but to also foster that connection in that bonding. All right eye to eye contact, social engagement. And tactile input. Three key big things to promote baby bonding with the parents.

Take a history. If you've known that there's been antibiotic use, a set of menen use, oftentimes those two go together because when they're fighting off some kind of infectious load and they're achy or fevery, then they take Tylenol. All right, so those are two big double whammies right there that you wanna dig into if those have been an issue.

Tackle those as well as far as reviving the microbiome and reviving the immune system. So those are some things I want you to think about. Again, let's look at the total load, what we call the allostatic load. Don't micro pick different avenues. Put it all together. Take a good history. When you see the total load factor, then how can you best decrease?

The load on the mom to be dad and baby. And of course, with our incredible ability to decrease the stress on the system by our adjustments, that's gonna help our foster more. Adaptability in mom. More adaptability in mom is more adaptability in baby. Here's the last take home I want you to think about.

Mom is literally creating, enhancing, fostering. A baby's genetic expression while she's pregnant. So any stressors during pregnancy can change the trajectory of that genetic expression, and that's where we come in. We help minimize the stress. Enhance neuro expression, enhance neuro adaptability, and essentially enhance genetic expression.

So hopefully I left you with a few pearls. I'll be back next month, which is May. We're almost into June. We're almost halfway through the year. Oh my gosh. Carrie, you're awesome. Thanks for giving us this time, and from me and Elizabeth, move forward, spread the word and keep adjusting light into lives.

We'll see you next month.