Eat, Sleep, and Poop (The Healthy Baby Trifecta)

The title of this blog contains the 3 main “jobs” a healthy baby is designed to do – eat, sleep, and poop !

Honestly, sticking with the “keep it simple” theme of the previous blog in this “Raising Healthy Kids, Naturally” series… if your baby does those three things well, or did during their infant stage… they’re on the right path to good health.

But as simple and cute as it sounds to rattle those off, there is quite a bit of intricate development and function that a baby needs to learn quite quickly to get up to speed on all those things all at once.

What’s really quite cool is that each of those 3 jobs is controlled by one primary system in the body, and also ‘connects’ to one main area and nerve. Yep, we’re talking about the Central Nervous System and brain stem area once again! And as we nerd out just a little bit more here, we’re going to add in this really rad thing called the Vagus Nerve!

That one area and one major nerve are all located in the upper neck area, just below the ears and behind the jaw. The two main vertebrae that protect the area and are crucial to these 3 functions are nicknamed the ‘Atlas’ and ‘Axis’ vertebra.

Let’s start with good old C2 here, the axis!

It’s called that because it is in charge of most of the neck’s rotation, moving things side to side and all around. It also is very intimately connected to the swallowing and upper digestive process! Simply put the “mechanics” of this part of the nervous system have a ton to do with the “mechanics” of the EAT portion of life for an infant!

If C2 is subluxated (misaligned, fixated, stuck, and stressed) then oftentimes a child struggles to turn their head enough in both directions to latch and breastfeed, and also can struggle with swallowing and the first parts of digesting food.

Pairing it up with C1 (atlas), they work in tandem to do those digestive (EAT) functions, and also really control sleep . Therefore if C1 and/or C2 are subluxated and stressed, sleep is really thrown off for that baby because the system just stays in stress mode way too much… and struggles to calm down enough to soothe and sleep.

And lastly for this Eat, Sleep, Poop conversation…

The Vagus Nerve is a wildly important nerve that branches from the brainstem area, makes its way right past and through C1 and C2 (and the entire neck), and is in charge of initiating the top 2/3s of digestion.

So when things like maternal stress, breech or abnormal positioning, or birth intervention (forceps, vacuum, C-section, induction, etc.) mess with the alignment and function of those areas especially… the most common effects are an infant who struggles do one or more of their main “jobs” day after day.

In relatively short order that stress starts to stack up, and the child gets stuck in this colic, constipation, and often even chronic congestion pattern.

What is more, we now know that for many kiddos this becomes the early stages of “The Perfect Storm” pathway… leading them down the road of developmental delays, speech challenges, sensory processing issues, behavioral, emotional challenges, and more.

So while it’s super cute to talk about Eat, Sleep, and Poop for babies… it’s also super critical they actually do those three things with ease. They should consistently rock these three moves, and not need medications or even natural supplements (gripe water, prune juice, etc.) to make these things happen.

Most often when a little one gets stuck in this stress, tension pattern it’s something as simple as a series of safe, gentle chiropractic adjustments that helps get them “unstuck” and unwound… and back on the road to optimal, rockstar health once again!

Or even better, our favorite stories at EWC are the ones where there is not much to tell! They get checked and adjusted right after birth, and on a regular wellness care schedule going forward… so that we can find those areas of stress and subluxation long before they even have a chance to wreak havoc on the eat, sleep, poop trifecta, helping ensure that little one starts and stays healthy for life!

If you love what you learned here in this email, please be sure to check out our events page for upcoming workshops to dive in deeper with our docs on all the steps you can take to make sure your kiddos live healthy, rockstar lives! You can find our next dates and registration information here:

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Thanks for talking about babies and poop with us!

Love,
The EWC Care Team