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Find Stillness to Cure the Illness

It’s a busy day, and you’re inundated by non-stop e-mails, text messages, phone calls, instant message requests, notifications— interruptions of all kinds.

The noise of the world is a dull roar that pervades every second of your life. It’s a rush of activity, a drain on your energy, a pull on your attention—until you no longer have the energy to pay attention or take action.

It’s an illness, this noise, this rush. It can literally make us sick. We become stressed, depressed, fat, burnt out, slain by the slings and arrows of technology. The cure is simple: Stillness.

Pause.

Take a minute out of your busy day to do this little exercise: Pause in the middle of all you have to do, all that’s going on around you. Close your eyes, and sit still. Breathe in, and breathe out, and pay attention to your breath as it comes in and goes out. Just sit still, for about a minute.

“Silence is a source of great strength.” –Lao Tzu

This stillness might seem like inaction, which we’re taught is a bad thing. It’s lazy, it’s passive, it’s against our Puritan work ethic. And yet, this simple inaction can change our world.

Stillness calms us. It gives us a small oasis of quiet that allows us to hear our thoughts, that allows us to catch our breath, that gives us room to breathe at all. It is the antibody to the stress and rush we feel daily.

Stillness has a calming effect on the world around us as well. By becoming still, we cause others to pause, to pay attention. Our quiet also quiets others. We set the mood for those who work or otherwise interact with us.

When we rush and set a frenetic pace, it stresses others and inspires them to rush frenetically too. Stillness has the opposite effect. It slows the world down, allows us to focus, and gives us time to contemplate what matters most.

It takes strength to be still when others rush. It takes courage to be different, to go against the stream. But while others might think us weird at first, that’s OK. Sometimes it’s the weird ones who make the most difference. And soon, as our stillness inspires others to find stillness of their own, we won’t be the weird ones— we’ll be the ones with wisdom.

It takes strength to find stillness when the world around us is a chaos of activity, but it’s a strength that’s in us, and we need only to find it. Paradoxically, it’s stillness that will allow us to find that strength. Be still, look within, and it will be there.

Find Stillness.

It’s pretty simple, really, and you don’t need me to tell you to do this: To find stillness, you just need to take the time to sit still, every day that you can.

Find a time in the morning, when the world is still fairly quiet. Don’t do anything. Don’t plan your day, don’t check e-mail, don’t eat. Just sit, and learn to be comfortable being still.

In practice, we’ll gradually find that comfort, and we’ll become good at it. If mornings are no good, find time during your lunch break, or after work, or just before you go to bed.

Find a place to be still. It can be a chair in your house, or a front porch, or the roof. It can be a park bench, or the beach, or a path in the woods. Let this be a ritual that you come to look forward to.

“Activity conquers cold, but stillness conquers heat.” –Lao Tzu

From this small place of stillness, calm will carry to the rest of your day, radiating like a soothing force. You’ll be calmer throughout the day, and learn to find little pockets of stillness everywhere: when you first start your work day, when you’re ready to sit down and create, when you’re about to eat, when you’re ready to exercise. During a meeting, even.

“Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson

Practice, regularly. Practice, and learn. Practice stillness, and the stillness becomes a canvas upon which you can paint the masterpiece of your life.

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

Tenets of Holistic Health

by Jeanne Ohm, DC – ICPA.org:

Nourishing the Terrain

When we think of nourishment, we naturally reflect on nutrition…the food necessary to establish a healthy terrain. After decades of propaganda leading us to believe that commercially produced “foods” are OK, we are coming to a rude awakening that we have deviated far from the natural, whole foods that truly nourish our bodies. Because this critical awareness is not upheld by all supporting systems in our society (agricultural, educational, economical, political, medical), only proactive individuals are making this difficult transition. We must be vigilant in selecting the foods we eat, how they are grown, how they are prepared and their consequent ability to nourish our cells. We know the importance of organically grown vegetables and fruits. Finding the best sources and preparations for our families may not be as convenient as we would like, but is certainly worth the extra effort. Our Nutrition section in this issue offers a few important suggestions to incorporate nutrient-dense foods and eliminate those that overload us. Included are family-tested recipes that improve the terrain and enhance immune system function.

Coordinating the Function

The classic medical text Gray’s Anatomy tells us that the nervous system is the master control system of the body, determining the function of all systems, all functions and all organs. Newer to science is the profound interconnectivity between the nervous system and immune system. Once thought of as separate, these systems are now considered intertwined. It is now widely accepted that a healthy immune system supports nervous system function, and vice versa. This is very important for us to recognize if we want to create a healthy terrain.

The nervous and immune systems are interconnected in several known ways. Adrenal glands are one common link. Chemicals and hormones that are produced by cells of both systems are another connection. Additionally, research shows that the brain uses nerve cells to communicate directly with the immune system.

Chiropractic care was first linked to improved immunity during the deadly flu epidemic of 1917 and 1918, when chiropractic patients fared better than the general population. This observation spurred a study of the field. The data reported that flu victims under chiropractic care had an estimated .25 percent death rate, considerably less than the normal rate of 5 percent among flu victims who received no chiropractic care.

In 1936, pioneering endocrinologist Hans Selye began groundbreaking research on the effects of stress on our health. B.J. Palmer tells us:

Selye’s great contribution to science was this clear concept, that disease affects people according to their previously developed ability to adapt. The writer goes on to relate that the physician prefers to hear that you have had childhood diseases rather than avoided them. He knows that a bout of harmless chickenpox while you were a child, will probably immunize you for life, but that if you contract it first as an adult, it could run a very serious course. This is somewhat of a reversal to medical thinking in years past. This may seem strange, but the writer has this to say regarding antibiotics. “All too often, a patient will insist on a shot of glamorous penicillin or some newer antibiotic for a mild infection. The physician will explain that the drug is not necessary—that it is better for the body to use its own defenses—but the determined patient shops around until he finds someone who will administer it anyhow.” “The frequent result is that, although the individual’s own natural resistance would have conquered the infection, the antibiotic suddenly robs the body of the germs necessary to stimulate the antibody producing mechanism into action. And, a stubborn chronic disease takes hold, against which, antibiotics are now powerless.”

In chiropractic we understand that nerve system function can be interfered with by subluxations, which create interferences to the normal transmission of nerve impulses. When this occurs, any and all systems are affected. Certainly immune system function, dependent on proper functioning of the nervous system, can be impaired as well.

Since then, additional studies have supported chiropractic care to improve immunity. One study found that disease-fighting white blood cell counts were higher just 15 minutes after spinal adjustments. In a similar study, the immune system response in HIV-positive patients under regular care for six months showed a 48 percent increase in white blood cell counts. Conversely, the group that did not receive chiropractic adjustments experienced a 7.96 percent decrease in immunity cells. More research is certainly warranted.

Trusting the Process

You may eat a perfect diet of raw organic, biodynamically grown whole foods, drink purified water, jog five miles a day, and get adjusted weekly, but if you are overcome with negative emotions enhanced by adversarial thinking, you will not be healthy. Your immune system, via your nervous system, listens to your inner thoughts.

Holistic healing practices have always recognized the relationship between thoughts and health. In 1910, D.D. Palmer introduced the idea of the three Ts. He explained that thoughts, traumas and toxins could cause distress to the nervous system, impairing its ability to function.

The science of Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) studies the interaction between thoughts, their effects on emotions, and the resulting immune system function via the nervous system. In 1985, research by neuropharmacologist Candace Pert showed that neuropeptide specific receptors are present on the walls of cells in both the brain and the immune system. This revealed an interdependency between emotions and immunity via the central nervous system. Her work gave scientific credence to the ancient healing practices that have accepted the mind-body relationship. In her book Molecules of Emotion, she writes, “We know that the immune system, like the central nervous system, has memory and the capacity to learn. Thus, it could be said that intelligence is located not only in the brain but in cells that are distributed throughout the body, and that the traditional separation of mental processes, including emotions, from the body is no longer valid.”

That said, being conscious of our emotions is imperative in understanding health. For example, take fear, an underlying emotion that has an immense impact on health. In previous editorials and numerous additional articles throughout Pathways, we have looked at the stifling effects of fear on our well-being and normal, natural function. Fear propels us into the fight-or-flight mode—an override of our sympathetic nervous system. In this defensive state, our bodies limit cellular reproduction and growth as the systems of protection are activated. To paraphrase Bruce Lipton, we cannot live in a state of imbalanced protection and growth at the same time. He maintains that the state of being that fosters growth is love, and that the protection mode is activated by fear. When we are in a state of unresolved fear, we cannot heal, regenerate or be well.

A wise person once said that “fear” could be an acronym for “False Evidence Appearing Real.” When we look at the germ theory and feel the underlying emotion it produces, we can clearly see it is fear-based. The terms used in the course of allopathic medicine reflect this fearful, warlike mentality. We have to kill the cancer, destroy the germ, fight the disease, be rescued in labor, struggle through breastfeeding—the list goes on, with a mental perspective whose constant is fear.

Ah…and here is the killer (pun intended): The solution to these “problems” cannot be accomplished by our own selves; we are dependent upon an outside entity (in this case, modern allopathic medicine) for salvation. For example: Germs are our enemy and our only solution to overcoming them is that hopefully, someday, somebody will find that magic potion that can “kill those germs.” Until then, it is hopeless. Responsibility for our own lives has been stripped, and this disempowered state of mind creates even more fearful emotions. Healing in this model becomes an emotionally charged, futile pursuit.

So, how do we break the cycle of fear? Other than reading inspiring words of wisdom and surrounding ourselves with like-minded practitioners and friends, Pert advises us to get in touch with our bodies: “Your body is your subconscious mind and you can’t heal it by talk alone.” Bodywork, movement therapy, simple exercise, spinal adjustments and massage can all release stuck emotions by clearing blockages to normal body function. Ancient healing arts and modern holistic practitioners all recognize and support the mind-body connection in healing. Pert concludes, “…almost every other culture but ours recognizes the role played by some kind of emotional catharsis or energy release in healing.”

Let’s be honest—the role of the mind in healing is not new, it has just been allopathically suppressed. Hippocrates (the Father of Medicine) made these statements centuries ago:

• Humans are created to be healthy as long as they are whole: body, mind and spirit.

• People are characterized by self-healing properties that come from within and an innate healing force.

• Health and harmony is the normal state for all life.

Now, the accepted definitions of health are returning to Hippocrates’ way of thinking. Dorland’s Medical Dictionary defines it as “a state of optimal physical mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity.”

Pert agrees, “Last but definitely not least, health is much more than the absence of illness,” she writes. “Live in an unselfish way that promotes a state of spiritual bliss that truly helps to prevent illness. Wellness is trusting in the ability and desire of your body-mind to heal and improve itself, if given half a chance. Take responsibility for your own health—and illness.”

I am excited to see science catch up to the holistic paradigm, challenging fear-based theories and supporting the return of logical wisdom. The reason why most holistic practices did not accept the germ theory from its onset was because the major premise of their healing model recognizes there is an innate intelligence in living matter: There is order, synchronicity, and a respect for natural law. It is a shift in consciousness, toward understanding and adhering to these vitalistic principles, that will have the most profound effect on our individual selves, our families and the future of humanity.

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

Shifting the Germ Theory Paradigm

by Jeanne Ohm, DC – ICPA.org:

Since the founding of the germ theory of disease, scientists have offered a holistic perspective. At long last, their efforts are taking hold.

I grew up in a household afraid of germs. When my sister was born, my father had all guests put on surgical masks to protect her. We all had our tonsils taken out “just because,” and antibiotics were considered a miracle discovered by science. My generation was the one first introduced to fast food—we really believed it was food! Our mothers were sold the idea that formula could be better than breast milk. So began the modern, manipulated, misdirected generation.

Fortunately, before I had my kids, I was introduced to chiropractic. I discovered the body’s amazing intelligence and its innate ability to heal itself. I learned about nourishment, a healthy attitude and a functional nervous system. Among the many teachings of chiropractic’s founder, D.D. Palmer, and his son, B.J., I was most fascinated with B.J.’s comment, “If the ‘germ theory of disease’ were correct, there’d be no one living to believe it.”

Fortunately, my husband and I were able to live the “chiropractic lifestyle” with our kids. Years before the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended breastfeeding (yes, they finally did in the ’90s) we were strong advocates for it. Long before the allopathic healthcare system was recognizing the importance of nutrition, we as chiropractors were recommending and consuming good, wholesome, pesticide-free foods.

In 1951, again far ahead of the times, B.J. Palmer published a statement warning against the use of antibiotics. We knew that germs were not the cause of disease and we cautioned against the overuse of antibiotics decades before USA Today headlined their dangers in the 1990s. We also let our kids play in the sunshine (without toxic sunscreen) and in the backyard dirt, decades before the study came out saying exposure to animals and dirt is healthier than living in antimicrobial households. We insisted that symptoms should not be suppressed with drugs, but rather allowed to run their course while addressing the cause (which is actually the path of healing, not disease). When we questioned the use of vaccines (a practice rooted in mainstream, germ-phobic theories) we were further scorned for our blasphemous perspective.

We met other practitioners—naturopaths, homeopaths, midwives and herbalists, as well as parents who also understood these basic principles—and we rejoiced that there were others who were living from this logical but undermined paradigm. But we remained a marginalized group. Often ostracized, certainly ridiculed…and in some instances, violently opposed.

Understanding the Paradigm

The germ theory proposes that microorganisms are the overriding cause of many diseases. It was initiated by Louis Pasteur in the 19th century when he examined humans and animals that showed signs of being sick and found that they had very high levels of bacteria and viruses compared to those who were not sick. He then made the assumption that germs infect our body and cause sickness and disease. Pasteur, along with German physician Robert Koch, is considered one of the fathers of the germ theory. The practice of allopathic, conventional medicine to this day is still based on this theory.

Less known is that several of Pasteur’s contemporaries refuted his idea that germs cause disease. Claude Bernard, a colleague and physiologist of that era, resolved that the health of the individual was determined by her internal environment. “The terrain is everything,” he wrote; “the germ is nothing.” Other scientists tested Bernard’s theory. Elie Metchnikoff, a Russian immunologist a generation younger than Bernard and Pasteur, suggested that a synergistic interaction exists between bacteria and its host. He, too, claimed that germs were not the problem. To prove it, he consumed cultures containing millions of cholera bacteria; he lived to write about it, and didn’t even get sick.

His contemporary, French chemist and biologist Antoine Bechamp, also believed that a healthy body would be immune to harmful bacteria, and only a weakened body could harbor harmful bacteria. His research contributed to this understanding when he discovered that there were living organisms in our bodies called microzymas, which essentially form into healthy cells in the healthy body and morph into unhealthy cells when the terrain is less than ideal. The conclusion: Germs do not invade us, but rather are “grown” within us when there is diseased tissue to live on.

Rudolf Virchow, another 19th-century scientist (dubbed the Father of Pathology), wrote, “If I could live my life over again, I would devote it to proving that germs seek their natural habitat—diseased tissue— rather than being the cause of diseased tissue; e.g. mosquitoes seek the stagnant water, but do not cause the pool to become stagnant.”

In this day and age, we have been taught that germs— bacteria and viruses—are bad, which ignores the vital functions they perform. They are designed to decompose dead and dying material. Germs are our planet’s recyclers; without them, life on earth couldn’t exist.

Out of the billions of bacteria and viruses we have in our bodies, most are considered “friendly germs.” Bacteria is essential for proper digestion and it scavenges dead cells in our body so they can be replaced by new healthy cells. When our body tissues become weak due to poor health management, normal bacteria and viruses start to multiply and scavenge our unhealthy, dying cells. Our immune system responds as a survival mechanism and we develop the symptoms of being “sick,” but the germs are just doing their job.

The question then becomes, what creates sickness and illness? Is it the germs or is it an unhealthy body? It has been said that on Pasteur’s deathbed, he admitted that Bernard was right and he, Pasteur, was wrong. Nonetheless, an era of antibiotic drugs, chemical pesticides and herbicides, vaccines and antibacterial soaps has ensued, resulting in a germphobic society and a pharmaceutical empire to lead the attack. But even worse, all of these weapons have interfered with the body’s natural microbiome and impaired our immunity.

Fast forward to June 2012, when the release of coordinated research from the Human Microbiome Project Consortium organized by the National Institutes of Health rocked the world. As The New York Times reported, “200 scientists at 80 institutions sequenced the genetic material of bacteria taken from 250 healthy people. They discovered more strains than they had ever imagined—as many as a thousand bacterial strains on each person. And each person’s collection of microbes was different from the next person’s. To the scientists’ surprise, they also found genetic signatures of disease causing bacteria lurking in everyone’s microbiome. But instead of making people ill, or even infectious, these disease-causing microbes simply live peacefully among their neighbors.”

Instead of the “one germ, one disease” theory that has dominated allopathic medicine for centuries, these findings imply that there is an entire ecosystem of bacteria symbiotically at work in the body, a concept understood by holistic practitioners for centuries. “This is a whole new way of looking at human biology and human disease,” says Dr. Phillip Tarr, a researcher and professor of pediatrics at the Washington University School of Medicine. “It’s awe-inspiring and it also offers incredible new opportunities.”

The following quote by Ronald J. Glasser, M.D., sums up the health crossroads we now face. This former assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota writes, “It is the body that is the hero, not science, not antibiotics…not machines or new devices. The task of the physician today is what it has always been, to help the body do what it has learned so well to do on its own during its unending struggle for survival—to heal itself. It is the body, not medicine, that is the hero.” As more doctors realize the self-evident principles of supporting the terrain, perhaps the allopathic model of killing the “bad” germs to fight disease may finally shift to improving the terrain to support the friendly bacteria.

The body, like all of nature, exists by maintaining a state of balance. It is dependent upon an environment that nourishes and nurtures with interconnectivity and cooperation between whole systems, and an underlying recognition of intelligence and a respect for the natural processes and order. Therefore, the essentials for a healthy terrain can be broken into several general premises: Nourishing the Terrain, Coordinating the Function and Trusting the Process.

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

Your Inner Knowing – Trusting the Process for Natural Birthing

by Author Jeanne Ohm, DC – ICPA.org:

It is sometimes called “our inner knowing,” “the gut feeling,” or “the wisdom within.” Whatever its name, the experience is universal. It is a feeling, a word, an image that stands out bolder than the regular stream of conscious thought and it makes a slightly deeper impression on our minds. It will continue to guide us, depending on our receptive attention to it.

Natural processes like pregnancy and birth are dependent upon a woman’s ability to trust in her inner knowing. This wisdom leads women to support and trust the process rather than work against it. In this way, nature is allowed to take its course.

For centuries, this very intuition led women in their decisions for their own health and the well being of their families. Relying on its ageless wisdom, women listened to its promptings and trusted its guidance.

During birth, women used to decide which position would be most comfortable. They were free to move about during labor and delivery to manage the pain. Somehow, they knew that the squat position allowed the pelvis to open up more freely—one-third more in fact! If other people were present at the birth, they were there to support, not direct the process. Timing was not an issue; the baby was born at just the right moment. Once born, the mother immediately held, caressed, and nursed the baby. Separation was unheard of. Mother and child recovered quickly and grew strong together. There was confidence in this process as in any other body process: with respect and a sense of fulfillment.

Today, however, the birth process has turned into a technological procedure. The medical system in the United States is considered to be the most highly advanced in the world. We spend more on birth than any other country in the world. We expect this technology to improve our lives and solve our problems. We are led to believe this technology alone leads to improved outcomes. Why then does the World Health Organization rank the United States as 24th (last) among all industrialized nations in infant mortality and low birth weight?

Doris Hare, president of the American Foundation of Maternal and Child Health says, “It compels us to ask, what proportions of these complications, which have had their onset during labor and birth, are the direct result of aggressive obstetric procedures?”

This increase in technology leads to restrictions that apparently cause more harm than good. “Women are strapped down with monitors and forced into positions which are counter to gravity and normal physiology. They are forced into the hospitals schedule, inconsiderate of their normal birthing rhythms. This greatly slows down the natural momentum. The origin of this position had nothing to do with being safer for the mom or baby and yet its practice has remained unquestioned for centuries!

These restrictions in birth make women feel afraid and powerless. Fear shuts down the process both psychologically and physically. It actually constricts blood vessels and contracts muscles. This leads to greater pain. Drugs are given to ease the pain and the woman’s physical strength and uterine function is impaired further. Her ability to stay connected with her body is impaired and even cut off. She is not told that the drugs can harm her child’s developing organs and even intelligence.

Because of drugs and maternal positions, women strain and push excessively to get the baby out. Doctors pull and twist the infant’s delicate head and spine to get the shoulders out.

Even in what is called “natural birth,” standard birthing procedures pull the head and neck. Research shows that the routine force used in birth, may injure and damage the baby’s spinal cord and nerves. One medical study published in Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology by Dr. Abraham Towbin addresses this issue even further. He says, “The birth process even under optimal controlled conditions is potentially a traumatic, crippling event for the fetus… Moreover during the last part of delivery, during the final extraction of the fetus, mechanical stress imposed by obstetrical manipulation—even the application of standard orthodox procedures—may prove intolerable to the fetus.”

Birth in our country is one of the most profound examples of how we have allowed the mystique of technology to overcome practical intuition. Before our high-tech involvement, women gave birth without outside interference. They trusted their intuition and their body’s inherent ability to function as it was created to.

It is no coincidence indeed; the very same procedures where a woman’s intuition has been violated the most— modern birthing—is also one of the greatest causes of injury to a newborn. It is also no coincidence that the health care provider who supports parents’ intuition and trust in the body’s self healing, natural processes—the chiropractor—is also the one who is most able to help reduce and correct the damaging effects of birth trauma.

Doctors of Chiropractic are seriously concerned with the amount of force being used during births. They know injury to the nervous system has a tremendous effect on a child’s ability to be healthy. This is because chiropractors work with so many children whose health has been impaired so early on in life. These birth injuries can have life-long health consequences.

One study done by Dr. Gutman, a German medical researcher, found that 80% of the newborns he examined had damage to the nerves in their necks from birth! These same children were all suffering from chronic ear and throat infections, colic, asthma, and other common childhood conditions. With specific corrections made to the misalignments in their upper necks, almost all of these children regained their health. His study, along with hundreds of case studies, shows how interferences to a child’s nervous system impair the body’s function and health.

With this research available to us, it is imperative that we as mothers become involved in our birthing decisions. We must look to decrease the possibilities of birth trauma in any way we can. Undue force and stress has become routine procedure in our modern birthing techniques. Doris Haire, former president of the International Childbirth Education Association, has investigated birthing procedures throughout the world. Her comments on births in America are not so favorable. She says, “Of all the 36 countries I have visited to observe maternity facilities, I am absolutely convinced that the United States has to be the most bizarre on earth in its management of obstetrics.”

I can remember giving a class in our community about birth trauma. When I was done, a woman in the audience raised her hand. “You are being very gracious,” she said. “I am an obstetric nurse and I have seen tremendous amounts of force used to pull out babies. One doctor resorted to putting his foot up against the table to gain greater leverage when he pulled on the baby’s neck. Than with all of his strength and weight put into it, he pulled that baby out by its head.” Most children born in modern societies with high-tech procedures have been injured at birth because of this type of unnecessary trauma to their tiny spines and delicate nervous systems.

With this evidence in hand, doctors of chiropractic are greatly concerned with routine birth procedures that lead to injury. This has led them to develop specific techniques to care for women during pregnancy. Chiropractic care throughout pregnancy removes interference to the mother’s nervous system, enhancing baby development and uterine function. It balances her pelvic muscles and ligaments and allows the baby to get into the best possible position for birth. Chiropractic care, therefore, facilitates an easier and safer birth for both mother and baby.

As mothers, it is important for us to take responsibility and make our own choices in our families’ health from conception on. Those choices need to be made from the place of inner knowing that we have, not from the fear-based approach we are taught to take. Today, it is tough for us to stand out on our inner knowing when the ways of the world are telling us otherwise. Our society does not teach us to trust the process by any means, but rather implants thoughts of fear and misgiving when the body is performing normal, natural functions.

We have been taught to fear pain, suppress symptoms, control the unscheduled timing of natural processes, and shun differences in our individual body responses. If it doesn’t fit within the norm, the average, the routine, it is not acceptable. We have been forced to restrain feelings, symptoms, and any other untimely expressions of life. We are led to look outside ourselves for solutions rather than trusting our inner wisdom.

Christine Northrup, M.D., a former obstetrician says, “I’ve learned that women and men who have a great deal of self-confidence and self-trust can go into most situations and get their needs met. One of the key ways a woman can develop a sense of trust in her own power is through birth, but most women today lack confidence in their bodies.”

Doctors of chiropractic enhance the natural process of birth and reduce birth trauma by encouraging pregnant mothers to choose safe procedures, supportive practitioners, and healthy environments for birth. They recognize that birth is a normal, natural process directed by the body’s inherent wisdom to function accordingly. They remove interference to her nervous system, optimizing this function. They offer the pregnant mother assurance and confidence in her body’s ability to accomplish this natural process. The philosophy of chiropractic and the supportive science behind it is in trusting the body’s ability to function in accordance with its own inborn intelligence.

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

The Homebirth Advantage

by Ronnie Falcão, LM, MS– ICPA.org:

When it comes to what’s best for you and your baby, you can consider a midwife-assisted home birth as safe an option as birthing in a hospital or free-standing birth center. At a home birth, your privacy will be respected and you can enjoy birthing in an intimate, family atmosphere. By birthing at home, you’ll be treated like a woman going through a natural process. Too often in hospitals, birthing women are made to feel more like patients with a dangerous condition.

Homebirth midwives carry the same equipment and medications found in a birth center. These includes hand held Dopplers and state-of-the-art machines for continuous monitoring of the baby’s heart rate, if necessary. Midwives also bring suctioning equipment and an oxygen tank to every birth, in the rare event they are needed. Anti-hemorrhagic medications will be on hand to prevent postpartum hemorrhaging, as will suturing equipment in case you tear.

In fact, midwives practicing in homes or independent birth centers can do everything that a midwife in a hospital could do. A 2009 Canadian study compared safety rates for planned home births and planned hospital births attended by the same cohort of midwives. They also evaluated the safety of planned physician-attended hospital births for a matched population of low-risk women who could have opted for home birth or hospital-birth midwives. Of the three groups, the home birth group had the highest safety statistics, including the lowest rate of interventions, serious perineal tearing and hemorrhaging. Babies born at home required resuscitation less often than those born in the hospital, and were less likely to experience meconium aspiration. Thus, the study indicated that home births were not only safer for low-risk mothers than any other birthing environment, but that they also called for less medical intervention.

One key difference is that professional midwives, in whichever setting they practice, work to recognize problems that could potentially interfere with a safe birth, and seek to correct them before they become major problems. They are also trained to handle life-threatening emergencies that can occur suddenly during a birthing, such as shoulder dystocia, postpartum hemorrhage or placental problems. Interestingly, each one of these emergencies occurs beyond the point when a cesarean section is still an option.

During the hours leading up to a birth, if a cesarean becomes necessary, there is a safety margin of 30 to 75 minutes in which to assemble a surgical team. For this reason, many midwives recommend that women labor within 30 minutes of a hospital as their emergency backup plan. This provides the same safety margin as women birthing in hospitals.

A landmark study on home birth safety was published in the British Medical Journal in June 2005. Like the 2009 study, this study showed that home births and hospital births had similar overall safety rates, but that there were fewer interventions and fewer complications for the home births. This prospective study with a rigorous research design is was most comprehensive North American study regarding birthing location options. A suite of home birth safety studies from the United Kingdom in 1996 also showed home to be as safe as or safer than a hospital for low- and moderate-risk women. In a 1999 review of all the literature on the relative safety of different birthing locations, childbirth researchers Luke Zander and Geoffrey Chamberlain concluded, “No evidence exists to support the claim that a hospital is the safest place for women to have normal births.”

Safety Begins at Home

There are several reasons why midwife-attended home births are safer than hospital births for most women. The first is that birth is a natural bodily process that works best without interference. A home birth with a midwife attending assures you that risky medical intervention will be kept to a minimum. (For example, Pitocin and epidural anesthesia, routinely administered in hospitals, introduce significant risks to both mother and baby.) Most problems that arise at home can be corrected with position changes or by providing the mother with food or better hydration— safe and helpful tools which are, ironically, often forbidden in many hospitals.

The second reason that home birth is safer is that the infection rate at home births is less than half that of hospital births. There are several reasons for this. First, the baby is born with the mother’s antibodies, passed through the placenta. These include immunity to the family’s household germs. Hospitals are notoriously germ-infested, and a mother isn’t able to offer herself or her baby the same degree of immunity from that environment. Second, homebirth midwives know not to wash off the protective, antibacterial vernix covering the baby’s skin. Third, because mothers and babies are never separated, the baby’s immature immune system is able to function optimally, without the stress and disruption of the baby being taken from its mother. Furthermore, the continuous mother-baby interaction fosters successful breastfeeding, which is the baby’s best protection against infection from the moment of birth. Midwives provide continuity of care and comprehensive mother/baby care at a level impossible in the assembly-line nature of hospitals.

Many women wonder whether they’ll be able to give birth at home without drugs; in fact, most women do just fine. Many women who have had babies both at home and in the hospital assert that birthing is much less painful at home, in familiar surroundings, with birth attendants who could cater to every need.

Childbirth classes teach about the fear-tension-pain cycle, whereby fear increases tension, causing the cervix to constrict rather than dilate, which in turn increases pain. It’s a process that’s counterproductive to birthing. When fear is absent from the birthing environment, the opposite cycle can play out: confidence-relaxation-comfort. That is, the more confident you are, the better able you are to relax, and the more comfortable you’ll be. This allows your body to secrete endorphins, which are the natural pain relief intended by nature for the mother’s body during natural childbirth.

As a laboring woman’s body produces more oxytocin to increase the effectiveness of her contractions, she also produces an equivalent level of endorphins for pain relief. (These endorphins aren’t produced if the mother is under stress or feeling afraid.) It is not uncommon for women to become increasingly relaxed as labor progresses, due to their endorphin levels climbing as the intensity increases. It’s easy to imagine how being in your own home can increase your confidence and ability to relax. A birthing tub provides even greater comfort, immersing the mother in the warm weightlessness of water.

Water birthing offers the woman the option of laboring and birthing in a tub. When a baby is born in water, the baby continues to receive all of its oxygen through the placenta until it is above water and using its lungs successfully. Thus, there is no risk of drowning, even if the baby crowns slowly over several contractions. The buoyancy provided by the water seems to help the mother and baby find the optimal position for birthing. In addition, the warm water increases blood flow to the uterus, which not only provides the necessary oxygen to the baby, but facilitates cervical dilation and reduces pain. Babies born in water are usually in excellent condition, and they are easily comforted by the familiarity of warm water.

The experience of birth for the baby at home is usually very gentle. We know that babies recognize voices during late pregnancy, so it is believed that the baby recognizes the midwife’s voice as someone nonthreatening and familiar. Homebirth midwives don’t use any devices that go inside the uterus or might be uncomfortable for the baby, and women are encouraged to birth in a position they choose. Positions chosen by the mother, such as an upright position, or on her hands and knees, tend to minimize stress on the baby and facilitate an easier birth.

Many homebirth couples choose to catch their own baby, and the assessment of baby’s well-being right at birth can be easily done with the baby still in the mother’s arms. Some midwives don’t ever hold the baby until the mother feels ready to have the baby weighed. Most parts of the newborn exam can be performed with the baby in the arms of the mom or dad. And because there is no rush to cut the cord, the baby receives all of its nutrient-rich cord blood, as nature intends.

Families who already have a little one at home appreciate how much easier it is for the older sibling to adjust to a new baby when their mom doesn’t mysteriously disappear for a few days. It may be wise to have a special family friend or a professional child doula there to care for the older child during the birth, but many siblings happily participate during the birth or sleep right through the excitement.

Easier Than You Think

The logistics of planning a home birth are often not as complex as couples assume. Babies born at home get a birth certificate and social security number, just like hospital born babies. (Your midwife can provide the necessary paperwork.) Birth kits with disposable supplies can be easily purchased online. Even larger items, such as birthing tubs, can be affordably purchased or rented.

Home birth provides an opportunity for a safe and satisfying birth experience, putting the needs of the baby first. She’s the most important person during the event: Shouldn’t she be treated like it?

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

Antibiotics and the Aware Parent

by Claudia Anrig, D.C. – ICPA.org:

Acute Otitis Media is the most common upper respiratory condition treated in pediatric offices and the treatment of this condition continues to be the most controversial in the medical community.

The majority of children suffering from Acute Otitis Media will automatically be placed on antibiotics despite growing evidence that suggests there’s only a marginal benefit from this form of care.

The pediatric community is being confronted primarily by mounting evidence that the standard use of antibiotics may be an outdated practice with little value and what appears to be greater risk to the child.

When prescribing antibiotics for your child your pediatrician should be willing to answer the question, “Does this case warrant a prescription”?

Let’s consider an observation published recently by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Family Physicians:

“Each course of antibiotics given to a child can make future infections more difficult to treat. The result is an increase in the use of a larger range of—and generally more expensive— antibiotics. In addition, the benefit of antibiotics for Acute Otitis Media is small on average and must be balanced against potential harm of therapy. About 15 percent of children who take antibiotics suffer from diarrhea or vomiting and up to 5 percent have allergic reactions, which can be serious or life threatening. The average preschooler carries around 1 to 2 pounds of bacteria – about 5 percent of his or her body weight. These bacteria have 3.5 billion years of experience in resisting and surviving environmental challenges. Resistant bacteria in a child can be passed to siblings, other family members, neighbors, and peers in group-care or school settings.”

Scientific Evidence

Scientific evidence puts forth the following information:

• Children with high temperature or vomiting improved after an average of three days.

• Children with high temperature or vomiting were likely to benefit from antibiotics, although it’s still reasonable to wait 24 to 48 hours since many children will improve when left to their body’s own natural defenses.

• Children without high temperature or vomiting were not expected to benefit from immediate antibiotics.

Considering this information it’s best to take an option to observe stance since 80 percent of children with Acute Otitis Media get better without antibiotics within 48 to 72 hours.

With this scientific evidence mounting, ask yourself a few questions:

Will my pediatrician continue to prescribe antibiotics to my child based on his or her old programming and habits despite growing evidence that suggests antibiotics make little difference?

Does my pediatrician continue to have concerns that there’s a risk for dangerous complications, such as Acute Mastoiditis, despite the fact that it’s documented as a “rare occurrence”

As a parent, what do you need to know?

• That there is mounting evidence from the research community that the use of antibiotics has very little effect on Acute Otitis Media.

• That your doctor may be prescribing antibiotics based on old habits or the concern of developing acute mastoiditis, which has proven to be rare.

• That when delaying the use of antibiotics for 72 hours, even if your child is suffering from fever and vomiting, 50 percent of all children improve within that time period.

• That children with Acute Otitis Media but without fever and vomiting receive very little benefit from the use of antibiotics (this child should not begin antibiotics unless their condition worsens).

• It’s your child and you can take the initiative by asking your pediatrician to consider waiting 72 hours before introducing the antibiotic.

Prevention is the Key

New guidelines set forth by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Family Physicians recommend that the clinician take an active role in preventing Acute Otitis Media. A few suggestions included:

• Altering child care center attendance • Breastfeeding for the first 6 months • Avoid supine bottle-feeding (bottle propping) • Reduce or eliminate pacifier in the second six months of life • Eliminate exposure to passive smoke

A Healthy Alternative

Take the common sense approach to otitis media and consider chiropractic care. The Fallon study with 332 participating children suggests that chiropractic care may be more effective than drug therapy.

Be aware that your chiropractor is not opposed to antibiotics when necessary, but the chiropractic profession acknowledges that over usage is prevalent in our country and that the habits of medical doctors may not have caught up with the latest research.

A Final Thought

For the overall wellness of your child, participate in all decisions when it comes to the usage of antibiotics and seek other non-invasive forms of care. Remember, it’s your child and you have a say in his or her care. Most importantly, initiate healthy lifestyle choices for your family and include regular chiropractic care as part of your family’s achievement towards wellness.

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

Children May Not Need Antibiotics for Acute Infective Conjunctivitis

by Pathways Magazine – ICPA.org:

Antibiotics are not necessary for most children with acute infective conjunctivitis, according to the results of a randomized, double-blind trial published in the June 22 Early Online Publication issue of The Lancet.

“We have shown that symptoms resolve without antibiotics in most children with acute infective conjunctivitis,” lead author Peter W. Rose, from the University of Oxford, England, said in a news release. “The health economic argument against antibiotic prescription for acute conjunctivitis is compelling.”

The authors note that each year, one in eight schoolchildren has an episode of acute infective conjunctivitis annually, and that standard clinical practice is to prescribe a topical antibiotic. However, there is little evidence to support this practice.

“Parents should be encouraged to cleanse their children’s eyes if an antibiotic is not prescribed,” the authors conclude. “Parents should be encouraged to treat children themselves without medical consultation, unless their child develops unusual symptoms or the symptoms persist for more than a week.”

1 in 8 schoolchildren has an episode of acute infective conjunctivitis annually, and that standard clinical practice is to prescribe a topical antibiotic. However, there is little evidence to support this practice.

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

Treating an Ear Infection

by Joseph Mercola, DO – ICPA.org:

I know antibiotics are not good for my baby, but what do I do if he gets an ear infection?

Avoid dairy. Identify food allergens. Try this safe, economical solution!

The treatment of ear infections in this country is a huge problem. Most of the chronically sick children I see were given antibiotics frequently for recurrent ear infections. The sad tragedy is that nearly all of these are preventable by simply changing the diet. Avoiding milk and dairy is the single largest issue, but clearly other food allergens contribute.

Even with the best diets though a child may get an ear infection. This does not mean that the child needs antibiotics. The simple solution is to put a few drops of breast milk in the ear canal every few hours. This usually works to clear up the infection within 24–48 hours and is far safer, less expensive and a better solution than putting the child on antibiotics. If the mother is not breastfeeding, it is likely she knows someone who is. All that is required for the treatment is about one half ounce of breast milk, so obtaining that from a friend will work just as well.

If you know someone who has a child with ear infections please share this article. You may make a huge impact on the future health of that child.

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

The Wait and See Prescription – Avoiding Antibiotics

by Darrel Crain, DC – ICPA.org:

Earaches bring more unhappy children to emergency rooms and pediatric offices each year than just about any other health disorder. Antibiotics remain the most popular medical treatment for earache, with doctors reportedly writing 15 million prescriptions per year in the United States alone. It is estimated that at least half of the prescriptions are unnecessary and ineffective for helping this problem.

Due to the widespread overuse of antibiotics, drug-resistant germs have been reproducing as fast as frolicking rabbits, constantly evolving new levels of drug resistance. For over a decade our health leaders have been sounding the alarm to doctors to stop writing so many prescriptions for antibiotics because of growing drug resistance as well as serious health risks to the user.

“The risks of antibiotics, including gastrointestinal symptoms, allergic reactions, and accelerated resistance to bacterial pathogens must be weighed against their benefits for an illness that, for the most part, is self-limited,” according to the authors of a study about earache published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in September 2006.

Antibiotics are weapons of mass destruction intended to assassinate select gangs of bad-boy bacteria. Unfortunately, most of the hardworking, honest bacteria in the body get murdered at the same time, wiping out the body’s mighty microbes that normally do important work such as digesting food and making vitamins.

The earache study published in JAMA was a test of something called the “wait-and-see prescription” to help kids with earaches. This method has apparently been tried previously, but never before in an emergency room.

Half of the 283 children in the study diagnosed with acute otitis media (AOM) were sent home with a standard prescription, the other half with the wait-and-see prescription (WASP). The only difference between the two groups was that the parents in the WASP group were told to wait at least 48 hours before filling the antibiotic prescription.

“Everything comes if a man will only wait,” Benjamin Disraeli pointed out more than 150 years ago.

An unbelievable two out of three children avoided antibiotics with this innovative wait and- see strategy. “The WASP approach substantially reduced unnecessary use of antibiotics in children with AOM seen in an emergency department and may be an alternative to routine use of antimicrobials for treatment of such children,” according to the study.

The WASP concept may well be one of the greatest advances in medical science since the discovery of hand washing. The immediate benefit will be in the fight against two very pressing medical problems, microbial drug resistance caused by widespread antibiotic use, and antibiotic-induced chronic disease. But I can imagine applications throughout the medical profession. How about “wait-and-see surgery” for example?

The WASP study is sure to be criticized because it was only an observational study, not a clinical randomized trial (CRT). The CRT is considered the gold standard in medical science, so if the only thing you have is observational and anecdotal evidence to support your clinical practice, you might as well just use the paper to line your birdcage.

Which brings us to children who visit the chiropractor’s office for their earaches… Critics of chiropractic complain that there just isn’t any science to verify the ability of the chiropractic adjustment to enhance natural healing of the ears. The fact is, a significant number of studies have been published that describe the neurology and verify the benefits of chiropractic care for children, but alas, no clinical randomized trials.

And that reminds me of the famous parachute study, published in the British Medical Journal in December of 2003. The authors of this study write, “parachutes are widely used to prevent death and major injury after gravitational challenge,” yet the placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trials have never been done. I’m thinking that at this point it may be difficult to find people willing to jump from an airplane wearing a placebo parachute. It looks and feels like the real thing when you put it on, but when you pull the cord nothing happens.

“The perception that parachutes are a successful intervention is based largely on anecdotal evidence… As with many interventions intended to prevent ill health, the effectiveness of parachutes has not been subjected to rigorous evaluation by using randomized controlled trials,” write the authors.

Now I may be wrong, but it seems to me that people seeking good health are mostly interested in getting well as quickly as they can with having to worry about additional health risks. The wait-and-see prescription is not a recommendation to just ignore health problems and hope they go away, it is simply more evidence that the watchword for medical interventions is “less is more.”

Common sense suggests that if you need to jump out of a plane while still up in the air, you might want to strap on a real parachute without waiting for the double blind studies. I agree with the authors of the JAMA study who conclude, “Individuals who insist that all interventions need to be validated by a randomized controlled trial need to come down to earth with a bump.”

Article originally posted at ICPA.org.

Antibiotics and Ear Infections

by Linda Folden Palmer, DC – ICPA.org:

In cases where the immune response lags behind a bacterial infection that is dangerously decimating the body, the 1950s advent of antibiotic medications saved the lives of millions of people who would have otherwise succumbed. However, the overzealous use of these wonder drugs has now created a new realm of powerful diseases we are unable to fight with existing antibiotics.

Once a resistant bacteria has been created in response to antibiotic therapy, it has the power to transfer its resistance to other microbes, developing new resistant strains. This has been an especially significant issue for the young, who have been chief targets for antibiotic misuse because they are more susceptible to infections and infections are more worrisome in them. Powerful, antibiotic-resistant strains spread easily around day care centers.

Tuberculosis and pneumonia were once conquered with antibiotics, but we are now threatened again by TB epidemics and increased pneumonia deaths. The excitement over antibiotics has also led to reduced hygiene in hospitals. Hospital sanitation peaked decades ago, when its importance was first widely recognized. Now 10 percent of the patients in hospitals acquire infections, a large portion of which are resistant to antibiotics due to their expansive use in hospitals. Three percent of these patients die from their infections.

Antibiotics have many possible side effects, including diarrhea, malabsorption, cramping, yeast infections, agitation, rashes and blood disorders. By wiping out much of the normal flora throughout the body, antibiotics leave patients, especially children, far more vulnerable to other infections, such as thrush (oral yeast), and dangerous intestinal microbes that cause diarrheal illness. Infectious diarrhea follows antibiotic use at rates ranging from 5 to 39 percent, depending on the drug. The most common intestinal infection caused by antibiotics is colitis from clostridium infection, which has a 3.5 percent mortality rate.

Significantly, antibiotics are generally inappropriate for treating ear infections. They have no effect on viruses and are certainly inappropriate for colds and flus, where they can lead to secondary infection. Yet the majority of children visiting physicians with these complaints will receive antibiotic prescriptions. This is unfortunate. Most of the time, children are better off left to fight illness with their own immune systems, while their parents and physician provide careful monitoring.