Ep 162: How a Single Strep Infection Could Affect Your Child’s Focus

Introduction to Change and Growth 0:00

Hi everybody, it's Dr. Laura with Connect My Brain. Okay, let's do some connecting today. I want to really focus this podcast on the idea of change. And I'm going to connect several dots to this. I am going connect it to our spiritual growth. And, I really hope this information brings you some incredible insight just to think about just to start to apply. Our kids are going back to school soon, which I can't believe. I mean, I could tell you, when I was a kid, we didn't go back until after Labor Day.

And, you know, children really do need a rest. They need to be able to engage in other things. and I'll touch a little bit deeper on that as we get deeper into the discussion. But change is inevitable, right? You change, you change from being the egg and sperm that come together, that begin to fold and create all these new characteristics in human life. and then you're born and you change all the way through your life. And as we get older, yeah, things do look different. I can attest to that. We also have change in seasons.

fall, winter, summer, spring. And depending upon when you're hearing this podcast, it is an incredibly hot summer. So that is also, can our body handle temperature change? Some people prefer cold. I definitely do. Some prefer this 100 degree weather. It's all about, you know, Can you adapt? to that environment? Can you adapt over time to all the changes that go on? When I think about change, you know, I really like to talk a lot about primitive reflexes.

Moro Reflex and the Bodyu2019s Response to Change 2:29

And if this is your first time hearing my podcast, a primitive Reflex is this automatic movement stimulus movement thing that goes on primarily in the womb. And it's exactly how different functions come together. I have lots of podcasts on different primitive reflexes. But the one that I think about when I talk about change is Moro. Moro, M-O-R-0. It's also known as the startle reflex when you get older. But it is not as a baby in the womb and up to about four months, it's known moro. And moros activates three things in neurology.

So when there is a sudden change, that is the trigger or the stimulus that then evokes the neurological function. And the neurological function is, the arousal mechanism. The arouse mechanism has to do with that newborn baby's sleep-wake cycle. So a new baby should wake up every two and a half to three hours to feed. so there would be a sudden change in glucose in the brain which would morrow or startle the baby, wake up the creates in our neurology is the balance between oxygen and carbon dioxide.

And there is a lot of information out regarding SIDS, sudden infant death syndrome, that actually relates back to this particular reflex. So we have a built-in system that if that baby is not getting enough oxygen, CO2 would climb and awaken the baby or startle the babies. Keep that in mind because there's always a movement pattern that goes with a reflex and in the morrow, the Baby is in that flexion in the stimulus creates this extension opening up the lungs opening the airway and there is a big inhale reflexively when that goes on so if for some reason.

this reflex is not working correctly, meaning the baby doesn't get that arousal wake up message. That's unfortunately when CO2 climbs and babies will often go into a deep sleep. And unfortunately, that's not a positive outcome. There's lots of reasons for different triggers to impact this reaction in a baby. The third thing that it activates in the neurology is the sympathetic nervous system. Now that may be a familiar word for you, but it's also known as the fight or flight. So you get some kind of activity going on and you have a surge of information going in your brain and your is perceiving there's a threat.

And you two options that then generate inside and it's either fight or run. That's it. Now, we use the sympathetic nervous system for many things in our body, not just perceiving a threat. Remember what I was talking about with the movement pattern. We're in flexion. we open up to extension with a big inhale. So inhale or whenever you take a breath in, that's actually your sympathetic nervous system.

Transitions in Development, Seasons, and Nutrition 7:00

Your exhale is your parasympathetic nervous. And this is, in my opinion, the beginning of what we know as heart rate variability, meaning I know how to get that breath up. Then the third part of the movement is the baby actually coming back into flexion slowly which would slow everything down, and that's what parasympathetics. That's what that system operates. It's our rest, feed, breed, digest. So, I mean, when you think about this one little reflex, having all of this neurological input, we've got to understand how far reaching these reflexes are.

This reflex actually begins nine weeks in the womb. and therefore it's a driving force. It comes on after the withdrawal reflexes begin their journey. And there's, there is a podcast on withdrawal, reflex is if you want to go deeper, but that's transition time coming from the eighth to the ninth week of pregnancy. I'm highlighting these words for you because to me they have everything to do with change. So the word transition, we transition from fall to winter to spring to summer. We transition.

From one part of our development to another. we make transitions from morning until nighttime. There are transitions everywhere. Even if we look at how we should feed our body, there is a transition of what's available when we are in the spring-summer months compared to what is available in fall and in winter. And even if you begin your health journey by looking at something like that, that I'm going to eat what's actually being produced at this time, rather than things that are being engineered so that we can have beautiful oranges all year long or beautiful apples all your long.

I mean, this is part of what is going on with the health of America, of the Health of The World that We want everything all the time. And living like that creates a pattern in our mind. I'm going to use that simple analogy of how we eat because it's a much bigger picture. If you are eating things the same all year round just because you can go to a store and get them, but are they nutritionally dense? Are they really feeding your body the way you would think they would? Because if things are being made to happen, we're changing the contents of the food.

Just like if we use microwaves, when you use a microwave, you are changing the molecular structure of the food that you're eating. And to me, these are some of basic things that people can begin to do in their own health journey that can make a very far impact. There's actually on YouTube a really good little science project where the kids took regular water, tap water by the way, and had two containers. One they microwaved, one they didn't. They fed plants with the microwavied water and that plant died.

And it was able to show that there was a molecular change to the water. So the like the plant really needs. Okay, so where are we going with just these kinds of concepts? Because change can happen by our own hands, like microwavable water. Change can happened by engineering fruits and vegetables so that we can just have them all year round. change Can happen in the world around us. And are really handling it Well, when I look at the number of children that are really missing out on their childhood because of many, many different things.

So I thought about attention is always a main issue for parents. And it's probably one of the No. 1 issues that come through our door at Connect My Brain. Another issue, so I'm going to use that one for the brain piece, another issue is let's think of mechanical, low tone in the body,

Mechanical Factors: Tone, Milestones, and Gravity 12:28

not being very physically engaged, even low endurance, which low-endurance can also impact being able to pay attention. Now, that's the mechanical one I'm going to highlight. And then the chemistry one that I am going highlight is strep infections. So here at Connect My Brain, we have a three-tier approach. We look at mechanical, body chemistry, and the brain. When I think about the mechanics part, I will use low tone and low endurance. So you come into the world, you pretty much just motor around on the ground until you start going through your milestones and then you started to pull yourself around, then start to put yourself up and eventually you're going to take a step around a year.

Now, this is really important because, unfortunately, a few years ago, our culture decided to change the developmental milestones, and I think this a very big red flag. In my opinion, we are normalizing developmental delay because all of them would change, that it would be okay if you did everything later. I have an app. It's a free app, it's called Connect My Brain, and on there it will go through the different milestones. Right now we go up to six and above, but you can always use this regardless of the age of your child and think about, let's say your children is 12, what did your son do when they were little?

If you do have a little one, you'll be able to track what they're doing right now and what should be doing. And be sure and go over to the website and download Dr. Hanson's Guide to Developmental Milestones. This is a free download. I think it's very important to put this information into the hands of parents so that you do understand what your child should doing when. because it has everything to do with the three topics that I brought up, low tone endurance, strep infections, and attention issues.

All three of those have something that we can trace back to the beginning. And if these elements are missed, then there is, there's going to be some kind of adaptation. And the adaptation comes at the cost of the child. So when a baby gets here, if I were to take that baby and put my hands under their armpits and the sole of their foot on a hard surface, we would actually see them step. so the stepping reflex is hardwired into every baby, or it should be. Now, situations like women who have to go to bed for their pregnancy, that they're bedridden, you are not up in gravity.

If you are not up in gravity, your baby is not getting even these inputs in the womb when those primitive reflexes are going on. Just like when you feel your babies kick, that is the asymmetrical tonic neck reflex and it's the beginning of laying down the body map on what's called the parietal lobes of the brain, right smack dab in middle where the sensory motor cortex is. So it's important that women are upright. Wonder if your baby isn't turning downward. After about seven and a half months, baby's heads should start to go into the birth canal.

So even in chiropractic, we have a technique that we are able to help align the pelvis in order to see if the pelvis and the ligaments and muscles of the mom are interfering with the baby getting into the right position. And lots of times I've seen to where we've done this maneuver, the Baby goes down, but then the Babies pops back up. We do it again. The baby goes, down the, baby pops, back, up, Well, this could be either mom's vestibular system or the baby's the vesticular system. And all these elements, they're mechanical.

So mechanical input is going to be a huge part in how that brain develops. So that's some mechanical stuff. If kids are delayed or some of these other previous prenatal issues were in the history, it might be why your child is having low tone or low endurance. but let's say the child didn't crawl, let say they had an army crawl but they only moved one side of their body. Wonder if you breastfed and you weren't able to symmetrically breastfeed and so the baby's one-side of the babies body was always locked down towards you versus being able to use both sides.

That would create sensory input. If the child was delayed in walking, that is a huge red flag saying, I'm not adapting to gravity well. the input isn't there to help me move on. And there's always a challenge to that physical component. All of these are leading up to locking a child back into that moral reflex also meaning I can't handle change well. And where I'm going with this is I think we are in an abundance of change that none of us, including the adults, I don't think, we have a point of reference for this.

but I'll get into that in a minute. Let's talk about the body chemistry. Here at Connect My Brain, we do functional labs. We do a lot of labs that, unfortunately, when somebody has a gut feeling that maybe my child has problem, they'll go and try to communicate this and nobody will do the lab. One of the most common ones is these kids that have strep infections in their history. And I really don't care if it's just one time. It only takes one infection to cause a problem. Most of the time, what we are doing with this is we're putting an antibiotic into the child.

Now, that's fine. You can make any decision for you that is right for your healthcare. This is never about bashing anybody's decision-making thought processes. But the timing of that antibiotic, okay, I've met some kids that had strep back when they were one.

Body Chemistry, Strep, and Inflammation 19:48

That's when their gut was still maturing. Your gut is still mature into age two, your immune system to age three. So those things that go on during those open windows of development are influencing the brain. And ultimately, we're going to be talking about attention issues. But the strep, it is very intelligent. We have bacteria that look similar. Therefore, when we give an antibiotic, We are actually causing it to run away. Sometimes what's happening is it's actually crossing the blood-brain barrier.

And you know, even five years ago, I would have people tell me, oh no, nothing ever crosses the blood-brain barrier. And the only one anybody would ever say except was meningitis. Unfortunately, don't think our brain knows how to go, Oh, only allowing the bacteria in for meningitus. All you other bacteria and viruses and fungi and parasites and yeast, you can't get in because I'm gonna put up a gate. That's not what's happening. In fact, now, because of children that have been diagnosed with an autoimmune situation called pandas, or maybe they have hand foot mouth or pneumonia or even Lyme in the history, they're now finding, and that would go to the acronym of PANS, but they are now through lab work that there are antibodies in like the dopamine receptor and other components.

One is called tubulin. and tubulin is in every single cell of our body. And if we're having reactions to where now we are fighting against it, we can see based on lab work how it connects the dot to the child and it matches every time. Most of the time these kids really have a problem with what you call conflict error. They don't see the world exactly the way it truly is. Some of them go very internally personal against themselves. Others do it in community. They push back against everything. And they're very hard, not only on themselves, but everybody around them.

They have brain fog. It impacts their personality. it impacts, their well-being. And we can measure these things. So if you have a child with any of these kinds of viruses or bacteria in their history, this could be the culprit that's actually impacting their ability to pay attention, their able to get along, and their abilities to thrive. Some of the kids are just so irritated. And I think when I really think about everything that's going on, they're on top of what's happening in their chemistry.

They're getting bombarded by things that really nobody knows how to support and help them through. And I don't want to put all these things into, it's just, It's not a mental illness. It is literally a body illness that's impacting their brain. Now I am not counselor, I'm not psychiatrist and I never taking away from any other profession. But I've been doing this for 30 years. And I have seen it firsthand that when children are plagued with inflammation, when kids are plugged with things that are fighting against them, it impacts their personality.

It impacts the ability to learn and thrive. And when you clean it out, They're running up and giving you hugs, and they're completely different. And I think it's just so important that we look at the whole person. Because what ends up happening is whatever is going on, especially during the early years of life. I'm telling you, there is so much in everybody's history. It is actually impacting their brain. And even you, as a mom and dad, if you have things in your history, If you had strep in you history.

Epstein-Barr, Lyme, Pneumonia. If your mom or dad told you you hand foot mouth when you were a kid. Or you've had food sensitivities. What about low cholesterol? Low cholesterol is just as detrimental as high cholesterol. If there's anything, diabetes, if this stuff is going on and you conceive your baby, and it doesn't have to be active infections, If it's in your blueprint, it is impacting the development of your babies brain in the womb. And they have found this. In the population that gets labeled autistic, something is going on in the brain and it's halting its progress.

And what we get is a brain that doesn't know how to prune away excess neurological connections. The long connections are there to the body, but the ones that allow for the higher brain function, the circuits that are going to grow over time, You come into this world, you are in your brain stem. You must go through the developmental milestones to begin to give the feedback to the midbrain and ultimately the higher brain. Babies do not read, write, and do arithmetic. When they are babies, they move.

So any of those movement pieces that are asymmetrical or they're not timely. they are going to impact how that brain is going wire up. And time is of the essence. We don't have forever to fix it. Now, we have this term neuroplasticity. Yes, I can do a lot of work at every age and you can make incredible changes. But let's give a few examples. If I have a kid that's low tone, and let say he's 10 years old, I am past the greatest open window, which would be about seven and a half to eight and half.

Before seven-and-a-half, we have things really working with us. When we get past that eight- and- a- half mark, you gotta be ready. You gotta roll up your sleeves. Now, if we get up to the age of 14, and that's when you decide to do work or above, you gotta really be ready to roll up your sleeves. It can be done, but there is a threshold that has to be reached, And it is going to require a lot of repetition.

Brain Function, Attention, and Sensory Processing 27:38

And, it's a whole lot more 14 and above than it down at one and two. When you're younger, you can literally begin to do things and see immediate changes. The older you get, just like for me, I got to work harder in order to go in the direction that I want to take my body. But all of these are fundamental in ordered to change the brain. We can see very distinct patterns when it comes to children with focus and attention issues. They have more slow waves in the front of their brain. And the brain is like above your eyebrows, right at the same line where your hairline is.

and that's your frontal lobe. And that frontal Lobe is supposed to be what everybody calls executive function. An executive Function means that I have been able to take all the stages that i have gone through. All the changes from being a motor person to a more dynamic person living in gravity, to person that's participating maybe in sports, and I am pushing all of that information forward over time. If you don't have that type of a journey, you typically hover, your demonstrating, low tone, that would be a very slow wave.

If your immune system is chronically ill, your brain has to preserve energy to try to keep you going. So we're going to drive more slow waves towards the front part of the brain. everything your brain is hoping for is first learned how to do it through the body moving. And if the buddy can't move properly, then I can tell you right now the brain isn't moving properly. One of the things that I see all the time with kids with attention issues is a very high level of distractibility. And I literally have to teach them how to think.

You do it very basically, not from a cognitive model. All the tutoring in the world is not going to drive that brain on. That child has to first learn how to pay attention. And the way that you learn to how pay your attention is you have to be engaged in your environment. High distractibility is really tied to those withdrawal reflexes. I really encourage you to go listen to that podcast. But it's also about how the eyes are going to learn, in quotes, to see. And you have to learned to See in order to Se to Learn.

An eye movements are another big area. In here at Connect My Brain, we actually record eye movement and we can demonstrate how this child's eyes actually moving. And this is oculomotor. This isn't about just wearing glasses, but can you control your eyes? So children with high distractibility, anything that comes into their peripheral vision, they are going to look at. They're gonna constantly be seeking the environment around them because the first thing that they want to know is, am I safe? And if you don't see this on a video, I'm moving my eyes around because I am checking out the environment.

If you and I were looking at each other straight on, that's central vision. That's 6% of your vision! That is the vision they test when you go to a traditional eye doctor, read me the lowest line of print. But that is only 6%. your peripheral vision goes from the central all the way around like a big radar behind your ears. And as that person went through the withdrawal reflexes, meaning I am able to detect the little bit of stimulus for me to look at to know that I'm safe. It's picking up everything.

So wonder, wonder if your child has slow waves in the front. Wonder if you're child's eyes, they're lacking control of the movement. Wondering if the child body chemistry is so off that they live in a chronic state of inflammation, draining all of their vitamins, minerals, neurotransmitters, the whole kit and caboodle. Wonder if your child missed a fundamental piece of movement and now they're having trouble. connecting the circuits in their brain. This is what it's all about. It's about connecting both sides of your brain, allowing your mind to receive the feedback from your body, the feed back from you eyes, your gut, and your immune system.

Wonder if we were able to detect that and show you where the domino came out of place. Imagine with me as I wrap this up, those beautiful domina abstracts that we see. You do one little push and eventually the whole spiral goes down. Now, I like to look at development from this abstract diagram. Wonder if the third domino from the beginning was not in place. I could go to the fourth and begin to push it and it would continue.

Putting the Pieces Together and Getting Support 34:28

Wonder if the 10th domino was out of place. I could go to the 11th and I can push it. This is the marvelousness of our neurological system. It will do everything to try to help you continue. But there's five pieces to looking at a child. They are gross motor, fine motor social communication, adaptation. When a child has the third domino out, the 10th domo out and others, they're adapting and adaptation is coming at a cost. And that cost is the ability for them to learn, The ability to have friends, to participate in sports and become everything that they were innately designed to do.

If any of this resonates with you, contact me at Connect My Brain. You can go to the website, fill out a form, and I will call you back and we can discuss what's going on with your child and decide if we're a good fit for each other. This is what it's about to serve your community, the world. we have many options to help you, not only locally here in Atlanta, Georgia, but abroad. We have remote programs, and we are committed to bringing this information into the hands of the parents. we want you to know what you need to now so that you can make timely decisions because I do believe with everything that is going on in the world today.

There's too much change, too fast. And none of us really know how to keep up with it. I know as a parent, it's hard too. You can reach out. We have coaching memberships, we have a C and B membership, which allows you just to dip your toe in and get some really nice features at our membership pricing. The coaching program is a six-month commitment. And the reason it is six month commitment because that is the length of our initial program here at the office. I don't casually dip my toe in for anyone's neurology.

but we do have something that can meet your need. We also have a connect journal for our adults because sometimes we need a little something to kind of pull the reins back while there's so much stress going on in the world and allow ourselves to create some margins. And that will help us see what we need to see for our children. You know, children really are little acorns. Their subconscious mind is developing the last trimester of pregnancy until about eight and a half years old. We really need do our best as parents for children Thank you so much for tuning in.

I hope you have a wonderful day and be blessed.