Pre & Postpartum Chiropractic Care for Momma & Baby with Special Guest Dr. Sara Cuperus

Hey, happy Thanksgiving. No problem, parents. If you're here in America, you celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday yesterday, and I just want to wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving. It is literally one of my favorite months. I love the Thanksgiving holiday. It bums me out when Americans pass over the holiday and they're already decorating for Christmas, but I'm not a judger, so I won't judge.

I just really love the whole month of November. I love the fall. I love all the gratitude that the month of November in America really represents. And it's our nine year anniversary here at Hello World and No Problem Parenting. So make sure you guys check out the show notes today because it is Black Friday.

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Each of those packages are good for either six weeks, three months, or the VIP package. You can spread your sessions out over a whole year. Okay, before we get into today's episode, I want to thank our sponsors, H&S Heating and Air Conditioning, Electrical and Plumbing. Yes, they do it all. They're kind of a one-stop shop. They've even thrown in the kitchen sink.

No, just kidding, but they'll work on your kitchen sink. H&S keeps you toasty when the temperatures plummet. Heating a house efficiently is a challenge, especially in central Minnesota, where temperatures can dip deep into negative territory. winter temperatures are hard on people so why not reward yourself with a high efficiency professionally installed heating and air conditioning system enjoy watching the snow fall outside your window while staying toasty and warm in your home and PS did you know they do duct cleaning yes some people ask is duct cleaning really worth it well the answer is yes our families we spend a majority of our time indoors especially in the winter and air quality is very important for quality of life. Call H&S today to get on the schedule to get your air squeaky clean. 320-654-1522 or go to hsheatingandair.com. All right, let's get into today's episode. My special guest and personal chiropractor, Dr. Sarah Kupras is going to share the benefits of chiropractic care for mamas and your baby. Did you know that chiropractic care helps babies with digestion, ear infections, colic, immunity, and overall strength. And it also helps mom with that pre and postpartum labor, delivery, and even postpartum depression. Let me tell you a little bit about Dr. Sarah. She is a chiropractic physician specializing in sports, prenatal,

and pediatric chiropractic care. She earned pediatric certification through the Academy of Chiropractic Family Practice and the Council on Chiropractic Pediatrics. So you can feel confident that she's able to give every member of your family excellent care no matter how small. With a background in athletic training, over 20 years of sports injury experience, training in the grasping technique, and certified in structure and functional dry needling, Dr.

Sarah is also one of the area's leading providers for athletic performance and injuries. She's completed multiple internships at the United States Olympic Training Center, treating athletes training in a variety of sports. She's also traveled nationally and internationally working with various sporting events like the CSIT World Sports Games in Spain. Whether you're recovering from an injury, preparing for childbirth, or simply maintaining wellness with regular adjustments, Dr. Sarah is committed to providing you the best care possible. She lives with her husband and two amazing daughters in Sartell, Minnesota. Welcome to the show, Dr. Sarah. Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here with you. Well, I'm so excited to have you, especially since this time around,

we're going to talk about all things, baby and babies and chiropractic care. Why would someone bring a baby to a chiropractor? So I know it sounds super crazy, right? Like, so a lot of times parents don't actually know that you can take your kids to the chiropractor because they think we do neck pain and back pain, which is true. We do. That is a lot of what we do. However, there is a subset of us who have a ton of passion around treating babies and kids. So we see babies and little kiddos for a number of reasons. They're not sleeping. They're not pooping.

They're having trouble nursing. They cry all the time. They're colicky. And these moms end up taking their kids to the pediatrician because you know, when you birth a human, something is birthed you as a mom, right? Like this intuition and this, this desire, like, I know something's wrong with my kid. I don't know what it is. And so they go to the pediatrician or they go wherever and they're like, no, they're fine. Like they check out fine. And the mom's like, but they're not fine. Like we're struggling with this or that or the other thing. And so a lot of times they end up in our office as a, maybe a last resort or, um, like, I don't know what else to do. Like, please just help us. And so, so we see babies for all sorts of different reasons, but really even you think about like the process of birth. Birth is hard. Birth is not, it's called labor for a reason,

right? It's, it's hard on mamas. It's a hard, it's a lot of work, but also think about what that baby goes through, right? Whether they are exited mama from, from her vagina or from the, you know, from a C-section, it doesn't matter. There's a different subset of issues depending upon the exit strategy. But birth can be really hard. And then when you think about adding on top of that birth trauma, right? So if it goes less than ideal, those babies don't forget that, which I know sounds kind of crazy, but like the things that happen to a baby become imprinted on them. And so that can be another reason why. So we've seen babies born through COVID over these last two and a half years that actually come out just in fight or flight. And these babies are rigid. They are in fight or flight and they, because they were bathed in stress hormones,

their entire pregnancy. So they don't tell me now. Interesting. Yeah. Well, and maybe I should have started out with them because I know that you do pre and postpartum chiropractic care for the moms. So maybe we should talk a little bit about that pre chiropractic care, like during the pregnancy, what kinds of things can you help a mama with? Oh my goodness. So we love, obviously we love mamas and we love kids in our practice. So, um, and really I didn't have a passion for pregnant mamas until I became pregnant myself. And like, this is hard and my body hates me and I'm trying to grow a human and it's a lot of work to just get through my day. And having had my first pregnancy, I thought, I don't know how women don't get chiropractic care throughout their, their pregnancies. Like so much change happens physiologically, um, inside and structurally that it's just as a necessity. So, um, a lot of times what happens is our pregnant mamas show up like, oh my gosh, my low back is killing me, or I have hip pain. Um, those are really common ones,

that we see a lot of. Sometimes we see our mamas that, excuse me, that are already patients and then they find themselves pregnant and they want to just have an amazing pregnancy. So that's, that's, those are the really fun ones because it's easy and we're not dealing with a problem first. Right. So, and the problem is with pregnancy, you just get more and more pregnant, right? You get bigger and bigger and bigger instead of better and better. So it's kind of a different kind of a treatment plan because we do tend to see more mamas towards the end of pregnancy because they are just so much more uncomfortable, right? Just being alive is hard.

And then if they have kids at home, you know, if it's a first pregnancy, it's different, right? You can take a nap when you need to, and you can, you know, not eat if you're nauseous, you can, you can do those things. But when you're a mom of other littles, there's no time out, right? So you're still doing the things and then it's hard to get on the floor with your kids and, you know, and you're short because you're hormonal and all like, it's just this whole process. Um, and we talk about all those things and we talk about how it's hard and, and what can you do as a mama to make it a little easier? So, um, part of it is, is the adjustments in, in practice, um, in our practice. And it is a little different adjusting a pregnant mom. Um, we have fancy tables that break away and allow room for a pregnant belly. We've had mamas of twins be able to lay on their stomachs. Most of, most of my stomach sleeper mamas just want to take a little nap afterwards.

I was going to say, they just want to hang out at your office for a few hours. Yes. So, so we can, you know, our tables break away to accommodate a belly. And we just want to make sure we, we keep everything really structurally sound so that all of mom's energy can go into, to growing and developing that tiny little human. Well, and I wish I would have known you back when I had my kiddos, I had acid reflux towards the end. I had carpal tunnel, like severe carpal tunnel, which I used to think, oh, come on, carpal tunnel can't be that bad. And then I got it at like month six or something. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is ridiculous. Like it's annoying.

It's horrible. Yeah. Numb hands. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. So when you look at the spine, we can actually trace all of the spinal nerves back into the spinal column. Right. But we also know those spinal nerves innervate all of your organs, all of your muscles, all leak your entire body, right? So, um, particularly in the thoracic spine or the middle back is where the nerves come out of the spine and innervate, um, the upper digestive system, right? So we're talking your stomach, the first part of your small intestine, things like that. So reflux kind of can come from that mid back area in pregnancy. Now you've got bigger boobs, bigger belly, all this weight pulling you forward. So that area of the spine takes a ton of stress in pregnancy. So it could just be that you're growing a human with a lot of hair too, right? Supposedly that's the wife's tail,

but fix that. But at least we can at least make you a little more comfortable that way. Perfect. All right. And then once the baby is born, like you said, either vaginally or through C-section, there are some different, the baby go, if the baby's going through the birth canal, that's one thing. If they're coming out of your, you know, cut tummy, they're not getting that.

I forget how the, how the one doc described it to me, but like, they're not, since they're not going through the birth canal, even the fluids or whatever is in the head, it just, it doesn't, I don't know, talk about that. I think it has something to do with cortisol maybe, or. So there's this process of squeezing, right? So I think about those contractions, right? If you've ever had a baby, your, your, your uterus is clamping down and really trying to squeeze and squeeze that baby out. And that helps the, the, the flow of cerebral spinal fluid through the, that bays the brain all the way down to the spinal cord. Um, but also helps to squeeze the junk out of the lungs that the baby's been bathed in. And so that whole squeezing process, that process of labor is actually super healthy for babies and super necessary. So then, and then baby comes out exposed to mama's bacteria, right? Which is really good and really healthy and really necessary. Um, and so when we don't get that, so if a baby comes out, like look at the size of a C-section, Scott, we're talking six inches, maybe. And you, and you pull the six to eight to nine pound baby out of that little tiny space. So, and a lot of times they grab them by the base of the skull, they grab them by the base of the head and they pull them out. And so the chiropractor in me is a little bit, I get a little nervous watching them sometimes watching videos of

C-sections and things like that. And I know that the OBs have zero malice. Like that's not their intention. Their intention is to deliver that baby as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

But I think about it, my lens is like, what is the strain on that baby's neck? What is the pressure that they're using? So, um, so those babies generally end up having more cervical spine issues, more neck issues, which we tend to see. But then you couple that with the fact that they don't get exposed to any of mama's bacteria, right? We've been born into a sterile fields because they've cleaned all of that. So now we have a, and babies are essentially born with a blank slate. Babies don't have a ton of bacteria. Um, and, and just what's, what was in the in utero. So babies are a blank slate. So we start that exposure with a vaginal birth, right?

As they come through the birth canal, they get exposed to a whole bunch of bacteria in a really positive manner. Um, C-section, we don't get that. So those kiddos can have some more gut stuff, more issues, reflux, constipation, that sort of thing. Um, just because of that lack of, of exposure to bacteria. It's exactly what happened to our kiddo because I was on bedrest at 25 weeks, a little placenta wasn't previa, but it was enough to cause me to have to be on bedrest.

And then our son ended up being born five weeks early and it was C-section and I did not, you know, I didn't know any of this stuff. And so, and he had wet lungs. So he's in the NICU for a little while. And then it was probably about four weeks after he was born, he wasn't nursing. I was either not producing enough milk on any given day, or he, uh, it was just, he had like reflux and he wasn't colicky or anything, but I could just tell in his eyes that he wasn't like in there, you know, it was like, he wasn't settled. And so I remember going to the doctor and I did have a really good doc at the time. And she said, you know, I think I'd try chiropractic with him because the C-section. And so I did, we brought him to chiropractic care and it was like literally night and day. He is feeding within, I would say even a week. I mean, the first day he was settled while he was in the chiropractic office, right. He just like settled in and I learned about the little burp bump on the back of his spine and how to help him get a burp out and,

or a toot or whatever he needed. Right. But literally within a week, we saw such a change. And then we ended up supplementing with formulas while he needed more of a starchy, uh, um, feeding, you know, food, uh, so that it would, it could kind of stick and stay down.

That's what we were told anyway. But I, I literally did see like night and day difference with the care. And I think that's why, like, I have so much passion for, for treating babies, especially in, in families, because when you help a baby, you help a whole family, right? When you think about that baby, who's struggling, like even in your family, right?

Like he was unsettled. He wasn't himself. He's crying. You're hormonal. You're a mess.

Dads want nothing to do with the baby because it cries and they just hand it back to mom. Like, here you go. I don't know what to do. And you have the plumbing. I don't. And so now it creates a division in your marriage and there's a struggle. And so like everyone is unsettled and it feels like chaos. And so if we can help a baby, we help an entire family because once I have babies better and settled and doing, you know, eating and pooping and sleeping the way it's supposed to be, everyone kind of settles down, right? So we get out of that, that sympathetic nervous system, fight or flight, and we can kind of settle into a new routine. And so, and babies get better faster, right? Like you look at how fast babies change. And every mom probably takes a picture of their baby every single day for the first, you know, couple months, and they change every single day. And so, so we get to kind of come alongside these moms and impart a little bit of positive change in the direction we really want that baby to go structurally. And they, they just take it and run and they get better fast. So most of the time, some kids are just harder than others,

of course, but just like, just like adults are sometimes harder than others. So, um, and that's really, my heart is just to help families. And so when you help a baby, we help a whole family. So you offer craniosacral work. Can you talk about that a little bit as well?

So craniosacral work is kind of an interesting, it's an interesting space. It's really fascinating. So when we think about craniosacral, the cranium and the brain and the spinal cord is kind of a closed system. So it's bathed in fluid and that fluid has a rhythm to it.

So it flows over the brain and the meninges and all the way down the spinal cord, all the way down to the little sacrum, right? All the way down to their little booty. And so it's super subtle work. The first time I was exposed to it, I was like, I don't feel anything because it's almost it's more subtle than breathing.

So I think about like feeling breath in people. It's more subtle than that. And so the touch is very, very gentle. And this is why it's really awesome on kids.

But think about to those babies when they get squeezed or don't get squeezed those plates. Right. If a baby is born vaginally, though, their cranium actually has to the bones of their head kind of come over one another to make a smaller, smaller ball. Right.

to get to, to exit this exit mama. And so sometimes those, those, those bones don't actually come back the way we want, right? So they get stuck. And so we can free those up, um, and create better flow of that cerebral spinal fluid. Um, and it's, it's super cool to, to watch, um, miracles happen. We have a couple of gals that do craniosacral work in our office.

They do the cranial work and the head work. The first time I ever had craniosacral work, I was an adult and had migraines and I was desperate. Like didn't, I will try anything at this point. And it felt like voodoo, no lie. She's pulling on my ears and it's really gentle.

Like the amount of pressure that they use is about what you'd push on your eyeball with. So it's super duper gentle. And I was like, literally sat there the whole time. Like, this is very strange. I don't actually know if she's doing anything, but okay. I'm desperate.

I'm going to, I'm in whatever. And the next morning I was showering and washing my hair. And I thought, oh my gosh, like my skull was tender. And like, so something clearly changed, something moved. And it was, it was the start of a journey for me on like really relieving the pain of my migraines. And so that I'd had since I was in college. And so it was really a very, it was fascinating because it feels like, it feels like nothingness, right? Because it is so gentle.

And I think we're, we're conditioned to think more is better, right? Also sometimes less is more. And so, especially in craniosacral work and the gals that work in our office, they also do a lot of myofascial unwinding, right? So the birth process is a myofascial process as well.

And, and that those memories are stored in your tissues. And so they do a lot of myofascial unwinding as well, which is super fascinating work. Yeah. Sometimes I don't even, I mean, I I'll try anything if I'm, if I'm desperate enough and And, and now I'm much more open because it's been years and years. And so if I have an issue or a problem in the regular stuff that I do isn't helping, I'm researching, I'm looking out for other other things to to get relief. But I can say with our son at four years old, after that craniosacral work, like literally, again, just a calm in him and, and just and things just kind of went back to how they were supposed to be, I guess.

I don't know how to really describe it. I remember him being very clingy that day after the craniosacral work. He just was wanting the nurturing and just kind of wanting to be around me. And then after that, it was just like this release and he was light.

yep like his body let go whatever it was hanging on to right like so there's there's some fascinating research around trauma and if there's a book called the body keeps the score that is my fascinating reading right here and i dig it it's a little bit of a tough read i will say for for mamas and dads who are interested in it it's a tough read because it's a little bit cerebral it's a little brainy but your body doesn't forget things right and so like even think about four right? He was four when this happened. And at four, you think about developmentally where he's at, you know, mental, emotionally, brain wise, structurally, like he's, he's falling, he's learning, he's, you know, that's the that's the summer of skin knees, right? Constantly. And all of that takes a toll on their little bodies. And pretty soon, they have these big fields,

and they don't know what to do with them, right? So when they come out in behaviors and things like that, and you are an intuitive mama, right? Like you that was born in you when you birthed him, And you listened and you took some action and we take an approach of like, I don't know, it can't hurt, might help, you know, worth a try. Right.

Well, I always feel like if I'm starting to blame myself or I feel like I'm inadequate or I'm not doing something right, that's, um, that's usually hogwash because I know that I'm intentional. I know that I'm loving, I know. So all the moms listening out there today, it's not you, you know, I, I usually say at no problem parenting, there's maybe three reasons why your kiddos are behaving the way they are. Number one, you're being too nice. Number two, you're being too mean. Or number three, you're trying to handle a problem or deal with a problem that you're not experienced in. And so you need to be reaching out and asking for some help. When we start to do that blame game and that shooting on ourself, that's when I'm like, if you're doing that, mama, you need to start researching and talking to a few people. And because it's not, it's most likely not you. But with that said,

And postpartum can really sometimes postpartum depression kicks in and chiropractic can help with that as well. Absolutely. So we we obviously love to see those pregnant mamas and we are we celebrate when those babies are born. Like those are the best days in our practice. And and we love we love all the babies. Right.

And so then postpartum. Right. So like here's the thing. No one talks about the fourth trimester and it's not in the literature.

It's not a thing, but it's a thing, right? So think about really pregnancy being more than just nine months, but really that there's this fourth trimester of, okay, I take this tiny human home and I'm supposed to care for them and know all the things. And, and I am the first to say, mama, it is hard. And you are in the weeds and you're tired and you're overwhelmed and you're exhausted.

And we're just going to talk about where you're at today. And we're just going to hold space. And, and that might just mean like, I need to talk about, I don't know how to eat a hot meal. Okay. Well, let's talk about some strategies. What can we do about that? So my job as a, as a doctor is really as an educator and as a teacher and like teaching you things. And I always say I'm a function of mostly useless knowledge, but you know, in the right context, I'm pretty awesome.

And, and, and it is about just using my own personal experience, but all the mamas that we've helped over, over the 20 years of being in practice. And so, but no one talks about it's hard. And no one talks about the fact that, yeah, the first six weeks of nursing, it sucks. It's hard.

You can't prepare for that. And it might not go as well as you had hoped, but you're not a failure and you are loving your kids, right? You're going to feed them. You're going to water them.

You're going to love them. And that's what you need to do. And the rest of it will fall into place. And it doesn't matter, right?

Like we always say fed is best. We advocate for nursing, but that's not everyone's story. And so being okay with the story. and sometimes it means intervention right like we have tears in our practice because it's just about speaking truth into mamas and like no one talks about like I'm supposed to love this tiny human but I don't know that I do wholeheartedly like every mom talks about you're like I don't know it's a learning process right and then when they're hard it's even harder to love them right but you do love them it's just this weird it's a it's a very hard space sometimes to be in And not certainly every mom is that's their story, but that postpartum depression is a legit thing.

Asking for help. I've had plenty of conversations of like, you know, and now and now my husband doesn't do it right. Right. That's the other piece. Right. He does it wrong. But OK, well, his way is different.

Different isn't wrong. And so, you know, just lending some perspective and just to say, yeah, it's hard, but it's. And you went through a trauma as well when you're going, when you're delivering a baby. Again, however the baby comes out, it's still a traumatic experience.

There can be a lot of fear. There can be just pain. There can be, you know, so chiropractic care just kind of helps keep you, your whole body in alignment, which can also help your emotions. Yes.

Yes. Oh my gosh. Yes. Well, when you're balanced, right?

Structurally balanced, your body works more efficiently, right? So that's what we advocate. everything we do is through this lens of the chiropractic adjustment, but advocating for, you know, taking care of yourself, right. Because you birthed a human and now all of a sudden your, your focus is on this baby and you let yourself take a back seat. And it's important. So like in my practice, you get to be, you get my time, you, I, and your captive audience, like we, it is about you. And so we want to take care of you. And so, so you spend your time caring, caring, caring for these little people. And like, we get to take care of you. And so many times I have to tell mom is like, let me, you don't have to help me. Let me just take care of you for 15 minutes. Like, just let me take care of you, but just really hard. So it is. And to relax and to let yourself kind of go and not have all that control and, you know, put your body in the hands of somebody that says, Hey, I can help. And you're like, yeah, I don't know. Right. So far I it's maybe TMI, but I'm going to share just because I know there are other, if I went through it, I know there's other mamas that have, when you were talking about, you know, you bring this baby home and you're like, okay, now what? They let me take this tiny little baby home from the hospital. And what am I supposed to do? That happens to a lot of people. And we just don't

necessarily talk about it because we want to appear that we've got it all in control or that, you know, everything is good. It happened to me and my husband, you know, our kiddo was jaundiced as ever. Oh my gosh, he was so jaundiced and they didn't have any lights to send home with us. So we were home from the hospital one night, had to go to the hospital the next day and be in the peds unit. So that, you know, started things out of real, real grand. Plus I'd had a C-section, which that wasn't in my, you know, that, that was a loss of dreams right there. You know, like I was going to deliver this baby naturally and, you know, had the whole, this whole plan.

Plus I was going to have a lot of kids and God gave us one and two angel babies. I mean, like the loss of dreams, the loss of like how you plan things can really set you off kind of in a rough start emotionally to begin with. And then of course I'm the attachment specialist, right? So I'm going to nurse my baby as long as I can. Nope, that wasn't in the cards for me either. And so then you start to feel like, oh, no, you know, now I'm introducing formula at four or five weeks. And that wasn't, you know, I wasn't going to do that. And so you can feel like a failure over and over and over again. And really, I love what you say. It's just all about keep them fed, keep them watered, however that happens. Sometimes the baby's doing really well, but you're not emotionally doing well. So you're going through all the motions, but you don't feel like you're connecting.

and again I just love that both you and baby chiropractic care can help absolutely and that's and that's I think where we shine a little bit like and and there's a place for everyone in in the in the realm of caring for mamas and babies right so there's a place for your OB and your place for your pediatrician and but and and even for your family practice doc right but like I don't do drugs so if I feel like someone needs like maybe maybe you have some PPD and and maybe you need something like, who's your primary, like, like let's reach out to send her a message on your my chart or whatever. And just like, because sometimes we just can't think we can't see, we just can't see beyond the moment of, of hard and I'm tired and I'm exhausted and I just can't see. And so sometimes it's just about like, Hey, maybe think about this and think about that. But I love your approach because it's not and, or everyone's there's a continuum of crunchy and not crunchy, right? Everyone falls differently on that continuum. And like, like I said, you kind of just have to feel, know where you, where you, where you stand and, and, and that continuum is movable throughout your entire parenting journey. Um, because so like babies, like there's nothing you can give them when they're sick. So now what do I do? So I learned a lot about homeopathic remedies when my kids were babies, because I felt like, okay, those were safe and I could do that.

And that's like a whole mind boggling process. And like, that's a rabbit hole of knowledge and information. Well, let's get into some of those things. Let's talk about before we wrap up, what are some tips and tricks for parents with infants that they can do just even at home?

Oh, okay. So this is the good stuff, right? So we love empowering mamas and daddies and for their babies to have the best outcomes. And like, we get to spend just a snippet of time with you. So our job is to really teach you strategies that you can work on at home every day. So one of the main things, and I actually reached out to the other pediatric chiropractors in my office too. And I was like, what are you teaching your moms? What do you talk about every day? Cause we just do this really naturally and, and, and without even thinking because we just live in this world.

So my first thing that I love to teach mamas is, is, is it's called the hiatal pull maneuver where, you know, when, when babies have a full tummy and they get that nice big fat round Buddha belly and it's delicious and you just want to squeeze it. But those babies are also the barfy babies, right? They're the ones that have the reflux because that tummy is pushing up into the diaphragm and then creating an open, it opens up the esophagus and they get herpy, they get barfy.

So if you can sometimes just put your hands and I even use like my middle and ring fingers because they're not very strong compared to my pointers. And you're just going to tug down towards baby's feet. So you're going to just, when they're fed and watered and happy, you're just going to pull that tummy down. So think about pulling it out of the diaphragm. So kind of like at the base of the rib cage, like in the center, there's like a little divot or whatever, right?

Right before the big belly. And then you just kind of slowly pull down. And it's just this nice, gentle pressure. Most of the time it feels really good. Um, and it just gets the pressure of that tummy, that full tummy out of that diaphragm. It helps with hiccups, helps with the, the herpiness, um, helps with reflux, helps with a whole bunch of things. I actually taught that to a mama. Um, her baby had thrown up for an entire year, um, and had seen other chiropractors and done other things and ended up in our office. And I taught her this one thing and I was like, you know, just try this. And the kid never threw up again. It was like, Whoa. And, or never spit up. I should say not throw up. But, um, and it was, it was fantastic. I was like, great. I'm glad it worked. Wonderful. So you talked a little bit about this little spine walk that we teach our mom. That's my favorite. I still do it anytime I pick up a baby and I'm holding somebody else's baby, even I just find it. And I just do this little spine walk. I love it. That can't go wrong. Right. And then like, I can't touch a baby without touching their spines. Right. Cause that's just what I do. So when you hold that baby up top on your shoulder and you can just take your fingertips. And again, it's not a lot of pressure, right? So babies,

when we adjust babies, we use, I use my weak, weakest fingers, right? My middle fingers and my ring fingers, because I don't need a lot of pressure. Um, and I don't want a lot of pressure on those little babies. And so you can just use your fingers and walk up their spine. And remember, we talked about those spinal nerves, innervating different areas of, of the body, right. And different organs, right? So if we've got a kid who can't poop, who can't burp, who can't, you know, whatever the sacrum, the very bottom, their little booties, right. That's the, that's all the elimination stuff. So just a little pressure there can help with, you know, constipation or a baby who hasn't pooped in seven days, you know, way down by the tailbone. Right. And you're just really gently moving your fingers back and forth, almost tapping with those and applying just a tiny bit of pressure. Yep. And then you can keep going up of the spine and then you get into that middle back near their shoulder blades. Right. So you talked about the little burp button. It's usually in there somewhere, right? So that innervates the diaphragm that innervates the gut that innervates the lungs and the heart and all those organs in that, that, um, that thoracic cavity. And so it's just an easy, you know, burping babies is not easy. You know, you just can't just whack them. And sometimes it doesn't work. One of my kids, I had like, she wouldn't

burp, wouldn't burp. You're, you know, working on her, working on her. And then you're like, okay, fine. I got to get up. And the getting up out of the chair that I was nursing in, like she would kind of, it would kind of shuckle her a little bit. And every time she'd burp getting out of the chair. So I was like, well, okay, apparently that's just how you need to burp. So I was like, well, just shuckle her a little bit, not shaking. Right. But right. Right.

And just a little gentleness. I love thinking of walking up the spine, kind of like walking upstairs. So you just go vertebra, vertebra by vertebra, just gently. Like you're moving your ring finger and middle finger up like a flight of stairs all the way to the top. And all of a sudden you hit it, you get a burp and then you just feel that baby relax. It's just great.

And they just melt. They do. They just melt. Squishy, squishy babies.

We also really love the forearm hold for babies, especially those babies who have a lot of gas. Again, those big Buddha belly babies, right, who just get a lot of air when they're nursing or feeding. And so holding that baby with their tummy down on your forearm, right? So their legs are going to straddle your elbow and your hand is going to be on their chest.

And just that pressure feels really good to them. And so like I spend lots of time carrying babies around my office that way. So we work on babies that way. And when you go walk around and we spend time and it calms them and it's really soothing.

And then even we talked about that hiatal pull. You can actually do that little pull maneuver with your hand underneath that baby right there. It's easy. And it's, it's just, and they kind of just melt and babies just hang.

Yeah. And they're just so relaxed. And moms are like, Oh my God, you can do this at home. You can do this. It's easy. And once you kind of get the feel, it's like, Oh, I got this. I can do this. Yeah. So, um, we really advocate for tummy time. We need to get those babies off their noggins. We see a ton of babies with flat heads because of the back to sleep campaign, right? That's the way they, it's the only way they want babies to sleep. Then when we see these kids with these giant flat heads, um, because these babies either spend a lot of time on, you know, and it's okay for you to, for babies to just have some space to kick and spread out and, and, and spread the limbs out and just to be right. So like put them on a blanket on the floor. It's okay. Um, you can't spoil a baby.

You just really can't not at this age. And so, but also like, yep, we got to work on tummy time too. So we've got to get them off that noggin because that's how we develop strength. That's how babies start to see their world. They get that neck up and their head up and their eyes up, but sometimes they don't like it. Right. And so parents get, they get really spicy. Those little kiddos get real spicy, really fast. And they're like, okay, we're done. And then they don't do it.

And so, um, and we know that flat head situation can lead to helmets and all sorts of other things that we can talk about another time, but, um, creating strategies to, to, to just even spend five minutes of tubby time a day. Right. That's where it starts. Right. So, and babies want mamas, right. They love faces. So get down there with your kid and just hang for five minutes.

They can be crying and you can be saying, I know, I know. It's hard. It's hard. And even if you get just a couple of minutes and then you do it again, you know, a couple hours later, you try it again, just for like ease them into it. Yes. And we just, you know, and the other, the other thing that we talk a lot about is keeping babies out of containers, right? Like I get it. Sometimes you just need to take a shower. So what do I do with this baby? Right. So you put them in a swing or whatever, but babies are meant to be held, right? So get them out of the buckets, um, the containers, the, the, um, the, the bumbo seats, the bumbo seats are like the bane of my existence.

I do not a huge fan because we put them in there too early because they don't have the core strength. And then that baby just kind of sits in a lump and it's super bad for their hips. I was just going to say, it's really bad for their hips and their legs. Right. But we think, Oh, look at they're sitting up and we're teaching them to sit up and we're strengthening them.

It's too early. Right. Yes. So, um, you know, and sometimes containers are good, right? Like, so they, they love the Johnny jump ups or the jumper ruse or the, the, uh, you know, all those different things, but, but babies just really want to be with mamas, especially we talked about that fourth trimester, where your baby, like that's, we advocate that a lot. Like I didn't have a sling for my kids until I had two kids. And I was like, how do I take care of a baby and a toddler? I don't know what I'm going to do. And I'd put the baby in a pack. I'd wear her on my front and she'd fall asleep. I can vacuum and she'd go to sleep. I could cook food and she, you know, like, sorry, kid dropped food on your, on your head again. Sorry. Um, but, but that's kind of how I figured out how to make it work. How do you, how do you play with the toddler when you've got this baby to hold. I don't love the forward facing carry really for any age baby.

If they need to see forward, like those older babies do want to interact with our world. So we're talking six to nine to 12 months plus, right. Put them on your back. You know, that's going to, that takes some finesse, take some practice, practice when you're not home alone.

But there's a finesse to getting that kiddo on your back and wearing them kind of in a backpack type of carrier. And it's awesome. They can see their world, but they also can connect with you really, really quickly when they need to. And so we, we, we call those other front ones, like the crotch dangler. And I look at parents and I go, would you like to be carried that way?

And they go, Oh no. And I go, yeah, that's why. So look for something, if you're looking for a pack or something to wear your baby, something that's got a nice wide base for their butt sits and it comes out and cradles them all the way underneath to their knees. So it almost frog legs them, right? Like babies were meant to be worn around you, right? Like, like they're meant to be right here, just like little baby monkeys. And so looking for something that's going to hold that baby in that position is really what we advocate for. So something that's got a nice wide base. I love it. All right. Well, we need to wrap up. We could talk forever on this. I know we're going to meet a couple more times, but how can people reach you? How can they get in touch with you? So we are located in Sartell, Minnesota. We've got a website, Cairo performance center.com we're on social media, Facebook and Instagram and all that great stuff too. Otherwise just call our office. I really love meeting with mamas. Like I can talk to people via email, um, and over the phone, but I really just, it's about connecting and, and making people and moms and dads feel seen and heard. Um, and that's really what we advocate for in our office. So if you just want to come in and chat, like I'm happy to do that. Um, and so the rest of the doctors in our practice,

and so we would love to, we'd love to be able to get in. All right. That's awesome. So if you're local to central Minnesota, head on over to Sartell, go visit Chiropractic Performance Center.

And if you're not, follow them on Instagram and Facebook. Thank you for being on the show today. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for tuning in to the No Problem Parenting Podcast. Join Jackie next time for more tips, tools, and resources that will help you become the confident leader your kids crave you to be. Who do you know that we could support on their parenting journey? Like this podcast, subscribe share or leave a review of the show your support of the no problem parenting podcast pays it forward and helps us help more families Thank you.