Ideal birth; an image

We've seen all seen it. In the age of social media dominance, you've seen that gorgeous mom with the high top messy bun, eyeliner on point, perfect manicured nails, in a deep squat or on her back with a doting scruffy faced husband with a furrowed brow or bulging eyes at his instantaneous conversion of seeing his wife the sex goddess become his wife....The Godess. She is 40 weeks to the day, maybe even a few days early, she gained 20 pounds exactly, and only in the past 3 weeks gave up her back squats. She delivers naturally; probably in a birthing center. She is only moments away from the perfect latch and perfect milk let down. She will be enchanted by her baby immediately and will step into motherhood with grace. Because of her authoritative physical presence, no one will ask her when she will start watching what she eats. No one will bat an eye when baby sleeps for 9 hours a night after the first week until the baby is 13 years old. The baby will never have a blow out, ear infection, and certainly will never cry every night between the hours of 4:30pm and 8:00pm. She will wait the appropriate 4 hours after birth and her husband will post an image of mother and baby on instagram, and he will say his wife is the strongest woman he's ever met and he is SO in love with his new baby.

Gah, these people are such jerks! Right!?!? Nope. They aren't. They aren't jerks. They are two people that decided to have sex during the fertile phase of the ovulatory cycle, and as a result, she had a baby. Even that is presumptuous. That baby could have been prayed for, for years. That baby could be a rainbow baby. The point is not how other people do pregnancy and birth. The point is that you don't have to do it that way. 

There are general markers of pregnancy; as a whole, consuming a bottle of wine a night is not the best idea. It's a good idea to have a birth leader; be that a midwife, an obstetrician, or your Aunt Lucy. They are way more attuned to the best practices of pregnancy, but the focus here is that you choose. 

When anyone tells me they are pregnant I send them to the same place. It is my favorite place to send people because it is a webpage that offers, "40 questions for your midwife." Most often I send people there and they immediately say something like, "I don't even know what half of those words mean." This isn't meant to overwhelm you or make you feel stupid. This is meant to call you to a higher level of thinking. The questions asked on that page are going to make you ask questions. Hopefully, when you ask those questions, you get answers that make sense and align with what you want. My goal in practice is to empower parents to be as present with their children as possible and in my mind, this starts right with that first pregnancy test, and probably even before. 

Your ideal birth doesn't have here or there, or up or down, or right or wrong. It must be one where mama is comfortable. In my social circles, if I said, "You know, I really want to deliver in a hospital with an epidural." I would be harshly judged. That judgement would come from a place of education and statistically likely outcomes... but it's judgement nonetheless. I'm sure there are social groups that would faint at the idea of an unassisted childbirth; it would appear that the politicians making the rules on all of our births are in that crowd.

As a newb entrepreneur, I've been attending a lot of personal growth/mindset meetings in my community. 75% of them are amazing and worthy of your time, by the way. In those meetings the final, obnoxiously esoteric and yet also applicable recommendation, is to envision your dream. I don't see why birth should be any different.

When you think of birth, what are your first thoughts? I suspect that a solid 1/3 of the people reading this immediately thought of the financial burden. Ok, so let's take that and place it aside. What next? What do you see? I think, because I saw it right when it occurred to me that I might one day go through birth, I think of Katherine Heigl in Knocked Up; again...maybe not the best image.

Who is in the room? Who holds your hand? Does your hand need holding? Are you quiet and still? or panting and dancing and wild? What do the eyes look like of everyone in the room? Are they old and crinkled into anticipatory smiles? Are they wide open to take in every velvety moment? Are you on a bed? Or are you on the floor? Are there medical masks? What are you wearing? Are you wearing a hospital gown? Are you wearing a cute piece of lingerie, like women wear when they need an extra "oomph" of confidence? Are you wearing your spouse's old shirt? Are there windows in the room? What's the weather like outside? Are you inside or outside? When you give that last push, what is the first thing you want your baby to feel? Will a doctor catch your baby in nitrile gloves? Will your baby go from one aquatic environment to another? Will you pull him to the outside world yourself? And then what? Will there be shrills and screams of pleasure and excitement? Or will everything melt down into liquid serenity. Will anyone else exist in those precious moments?

I've been told a million times, "I thought I wanted to sit on the ball: I didn't want to sit on the ball". "I thought I would want my husband to rub my back: If anyone touched me I threw up." It's ok for things to change. It's ok to want to wear something special and then it gets poop or pee or some other bodily function on it and have to change. It's ok to start at home and end up not at home. It's ok to have a birth plan that goes out the window. But that doesn't make the birth plan any less significant. Have someone, or a team of someones with you to help you. If you don't want pitocin, and you are offered pitocin...that's not ok. If you don't want an epidural and you are offered an epidural, that's not ok! If you don't want your husband's sister's mailman in the room, guess what? THEY DON'T COME IN. You are delivering your baby into the world. Anyone else in the room is merely an observer or an accomplice in miracle work. Make sure your company is worthy of the experience; because birth is nothing short of miraculous. 

The Guiding Principle

The guiding principle for all that I do is this: Your body is a self healing organism. Our existence depends on our ability to break down and create new cells, organs, and tissues (with the exception of a few) on a regular basis.

 This principle is dependent on a good communication between the central command, your brain, and the end organ. When everything is clearly heard and understood, the body is functioning at its peak, and this is what we would call health. Anything less than this ideal performance is not ok.

If the communication is compromised by a vertebral subluxation*, or misalignment, then those normal cycles of break down and creation are negatively impacted. When this happens your body is not able to do what it was designed to do, and chaos ensues.

Chiropractic restores order in that chaos, and supports your body's ability to regulate cell, tissue, and organ function on it's own.

When you come in to our office, unless we are old pals, we are looking at your life purely in the information provided from exams, tests, and story that you provide us; this means that as we move through your health and history we are painting a picture of what today looks like for your body. Often this painting gives us a glance at what we can expect from your health ten, or twenty years from now. It is my goal in practice to empower families to be as active and present with each other as possible, to build strong units that adapt to whatever life may throw at them. To me, this means making sure that mom and dad are set up to play, provide, and connect, and that baby is eating, pooping, sleeping, and growing to the best of their ability. Being a parent is basically like being an athlete,..except there's no off season...or sweet endorsement deals. Most notably; it is not easy all the time. Some phases are easier than others, some situations are easier than others. If we have that clear line of communication between the brain and the body and we have a little more of that organization in the chaos, then we have good foundation for that family to grow and develop like it was meant to.

I look forward to getting to know all of you a lot better as I not only re-integrate into the Central Coast culture, but also as I join the Beacon Clinic.


*More on this later :)

Building strong children AND repairing broken men

It takes a village right? It takes a village to raise a baby? It takes a village to build a community and it takes a unified voice to change the world. While changing the world is inevitable or impossible depending on your definition, my goal is to make sure my circles of mamas are empowered to make the decisions that work FOR them. My goal is to help women meet those goals by making sure their spine is unsubluxated and providing them information on what might be best for them. This is a big task! Most women you talk to have some aspect of their labor that was taken from them: something they didn't like: something that in the moment didn't seem like a big deal, but afterwards became a big deal. Fortunately, there are several organizations and individuals out there that agree with my goal and are also working to help women make the best labor and birth decisions for themselves.

Previously I've discussed the Chiropractic principle of time. Thank the forces that be, because it is unlikely a woman wakes up not pregnant and goes to bed that night having delivered a baby. We have time! Elephants have a 3 year gestation period.... Suddenly 40 weeks doesn't sound so bad does it? We have discussed subluxation within the complexity of time, but if time is a component of subluxation, why would a baby need to be adjusted? They are squishy, and tiny, and new, and markedly not very ossified. 

Well, I'd like you to welcome Andra Allcorn to the stage. She is in the village and she is one of the hardest working people I know. Below, Andra tackles the question, "If time is a component of subluxation, why would a baby need to be adjusted?". In my opinion the piece is articulate, emotional, and speaks a truth of that unified voice mentioned above. 

Time is a funny thing. I’ve been told time doesn’t exist – it’s a man-made construct. But so much of our understanding as human beings is centered around time. But if time is a component of subluxation, why would a baby need to be adjusted?

 

Depending on your beliefs surrounding when life begins, a human life can begin 40(ish) weeks prior to birth. That’s 280(ish) days that the little human is growing and changing at a rapid pace. From 2 microscopic cells to a 7(ish) lbbaby at birth, those 40(ish) weeks that momma is pregnant they are constantly growing and changing. Depending on the pregnancy, there can be many other influencing factors that could inhibit optimal cell growth and development, such as diet, or medications. In addition to those factors, the birth process can be a lengthy, stressful transition from inside the mother’s womb to the outside world. Most often you hear pregnant mommas say their one wish is for a healthy baby with 10 fingers and 10 toes. But if the means to connect your baby to their Innate Intelligence hours or weeks after coming into this world, wouldn’t you want to take advantage of that?

A mere 16 days after conception, the primitive beginnings of your nervous system start to form. Around 7 weeks, your brain, the command center of you starts to form. With the beginning of the central nervous system forming, the skeletal structure protecting the brain and spinal cord start to develop as well. Around 4 months, the baby is lengthening and strengthening those bones. During the 40(ish) week gestation period, your beautiful baby develops and builds more than 200 bones! They grow and grow and grow until they are ready to enter into the world as tiny little babies.

 

Through the transition from womb to real world, the baby’s skeleton is squeezing and twisting through the 4.3(ish)-inch-wide birth canal in a process so beautifully designed it can only be called miraculous. Adjusting to the real world after this transition can be just that, a transition. From the birthing process to learning to walk, the spine takes on a lot of force from the beginning. Specific chiropractic adjustments for infants, babies, and toddlers are gentle adjustments, using no more than the pressure you would put on your eyeball. The aim is to align the vertebrae of the spine so as to remove interference within the nervous system so that your little bundle of joy has the Innate Intelligence of their body flowing to every cell in their being. Vitalistic chiropractors focus on how the body functions, and provide adjustments that remove interference from day zero. 

                                     

Since we can’t deny that the progression of time is inevitable, just like death and taxes, wouldn’t it be wonderful to have all babies checked and adjusted, if necessary? As they continue to grow and develop into kidlets, tweens, teens, and beyond, having a nervous system free of interference will continue to serve them as they grow and grow and grow for the next 20+ years.