Turning Off Your Baby's 'Survival Mode': How Chiropractic Care Supports Calmer, Happier Babies

Let me explain. For while my story may be a bit extreme I am certain that it will resonate with the many mums out there who also have unsettled, unhappy stressed out bubs.

Perhaps you may even pause for a moment and consider whether stress experienced during your own pregnancy and birthing story may have 'turned on' your own baby's 'street fighter' survival switch too.

The long answer to why our firstborn baby was fighting for his life is that I am what my husband, Andrew, and many of my doctors, would affectionately term a "weird arse" infertility patient.

I am "weird" because I am an auto-immune patient and when my body is pregnant it believes that the baby I am carrying is a foreign invader and so my body tries its best to kill off the baby using Natural Uterine Killer cells and uterus contractions. This is why it has taken us over a decade to complete our family with our 3 beloved, beautiful babies ... Sam, James & Alexandra.

In utero, poor Sam experienced the trauma of 12 whole weeks of first stage labour. Repeated contractions, pushing against him every 20 minutes. From 26 weeks gestation he was fully engaged. With my uterus bearing down on him, over and over again, he struggled just to breathe. No wonder his body went into survival mode!
Understandably, after his birth, Sam was a stressed out, unwell baby, who never slept. He was unsettled, unhappy and suffered with projectile reflux. Sadly, traditional paediatrician visits did little to nothing to improve Sam's health and well-being. So, in the end, to find solutions to our baby's health problems, my husband, Andrew focused his chiropractic professional development studies on neurological and paediatric based chiropractic treatments in order to help our son.

Ultimately, paediatric chiropractic treatments helped to calm Sam's nervous system. He went from surviving to thriving! His energy and joie de vivre is boundless!
Now our son, Sam's story may be a particularly extreme example but many babies come out 'fighting' as a result of stress experienced during their gestation and birth.

Mums should ask themselves the following:

1) Did I experience any stress during my pregnancy (including emotional stress, nutritional stress, physical stress etc)?

2) Was the birth especially stressful (complications? too long? too fast? too early? too late? assisted birth with forceps/suction? etc etc) and

3) Was I stressed before my pregnancy?

Pre-natal stress can also trigger the 'street fighter' switch in your baby. A recent WHO supported study, now suggests that: "pre-natal stress exposure may actually program a foetus to experience higher levels of stress and potentially lower their capacity for resilience" (Coulson p. 16).

So how does chiropractic help you to 'turn off' your baby's 'street fighter' survival switch? How can we help to calm your unsettled, unhappy baby?
The answer: neurological chiro treatments help to 'turn off' the 'fight or flight' response switch by assisting with the re-routing of neural pathways thereby calming your baby's nerves.

Calm, content babies. For this mum, that is bliss!

From the desk of Catherine Riddle (B.A., Post. Grad. Dip. Ed.). Mum to 3 kids, teacher & Practice Manager of Life Balance Health Centre.

WANT MORE HELP?

For over 16 years now, Dr Andrew Riddle (DC) has been providing gentle, paediatric chiro treatments to babies. If you have any questions or for more information please contact Catherine or Andrew.
Email: info@lbhc.com.au or phone (08) 94033999.

References:
Coulson, Justin (2017), "9 Ways to a Resilient Child", ABC Books.
Huiznik, A.C., Bartels, M. Rose, R.J., Pulkkinen, L., Eriksson, C.J.P., & Kapiro, J. (2008). Chernobyl exposure as a stressor during pregnancy and hormone levels in adolescent offspring. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 62 (4), 1-6. DOI: 10.1136/jech.2007.060350