Birth Dystocia What You Need To Know!

When you’re pregnant you get a whole lot of unsolicited information pouring your way, right? When I was towards the end of my pregnancy with my eldest I found myself listening to a lady in the aisle of our local Hy-Vee supermarket in the USA, rambling on to me about pain, discomfort and drugs. Her last comment to me as she paid for her groceries was when it all slows down honey… take the drugs! I thought to myself why is it people feel compelled to share their birth story, good or bad, with you when you are pregnant? I decided that day in the Hy-Vee checkout aisle to surround myself with white light, nod politely and say to myself ‘that’s your journey not mine’. As I see it, everybody’s journey is different – experiences, birth option, thought processes, trauma, fear, structural integrity and nerve system disturbance amongst many other factors.

It’s the nerve disturbance and fear I want to focus on in this article. I have found over the decades of listening to the stories and my own experience that there is a common thread regardless of the place of birth, type of birth, country of birth, or birth team attendees and it’s this…

The Birth Process Slows Down At Some Point Albeit Long or Brief

The logical question to ask then is why does it slow down and what do you do when it does? Will you do what the Hy-Vee lady suggested?

This process of slowing down is called Dystocia which means a change in movement. There are three ways the ‘slowing down’ occurs;

             1) Physical

            2) Emotional or

            3) Iatrogenic

Depending on your philosophical alignment and understanding of the birth process this could be a good thing or a bad thing. My intention is to outline them for you from the Vital Moms vitalistic health perspective.

    1)      Dystocia – Physical

Why might the birth process slow down due to physical dystocia? Our nerve system is the master communicating system of the body. Think of it like a super highway carrying vital messages from your brain to your vital organs and cells – one of which is the uterus – and back again. When a system creates nerve disturbance with itself the messages become muffled, irritated or at worst not heard.

It may help to imagine this in the following way …

Picture yourself organizing a hot air balloon ride. You arrive in the early morning at the field where the balloon is being readied. You notice the wicker basket is tied by rope to the ground and the balloon is tied by cords to the wicker basket. The crew fill the balloon with air and then blast the burner flame, heating the air and expanding the balloon.

The balloon envelope looks gorgeous in its symmetry against the morning sky.

Now, if one or more of those ropes holding the wicker basket to the ground was twisted or pulled on only slightly more than another imagine for a moment how the balloon envelope would appear — perhaps lopsided, asymmetrical and unable to move or rise efficiently?

Now imagine the wicker basket as your uterus, and coming off your uterus are ligaments. When ligaments are not “sitting” the way they’re intended to, you may experience similar challenges to the hot air balloon— your uterus may not be positioned symmetrically, rotated to one side.

Just as the efficiency of the balloon would be hindered and flight would be almost impossible, if your uterus is out of symmetry, out of alignment, it may hinder the growth and the birth process.

Nerve disturbance can affect both you and your child’s ability to birth. A constrained or inhibited uterus may mean your baby is able to move less freely, decreasing the tumbling and turning and creating a change in movement…a slowing down.

     2)      Dystocia – Emotional

Why might the birth process slow down due to emotional dystocia? Well that is a good question! When we look at the emotional aspect of birth there is a full and colourful array of emotions expressed by individuals prior to the birth process and during the birth itself. These emotions which are carried via the nerve system can be unsung, quite and percolating in the woman’s mind naked to the untrained eye or the emotions can loud and in your face. Either way the emotions of the birth mother are important to the progress of birth.

Fear is one of the biggest emotions confronting birth. An article published June 27, 2012 in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology found a link between fear of childbirth and longer duration of labour. The article also mentioned… generally, longer labour duration increases the risk of instrumental vaginal delivery and emergency caesarean section. The study found women with a fear of childbirth more often delivered by instrumental vaginal delivery (17.0% versus 10.6%) or emergency caesarean delivery (10.9% versus 6.8%) as compared to women without fear of childbirth.

Let me use myself as an example…

I created emotional Dystocia for a brief period during the birth of our second child. It wasn’t because of the fear of birthing but the fear of do I really want to be a parent again, oh my gosh how I am going to cope with two, what if it’s another boy, what if it’s a girl! I knew it was my emotions holding me back from not opening up to the birth process… contractions slowed down, I felt tired and went to rest on my bed. I slept for 45 minutes and upon waking asked my husband to call a fellow chiropractor of ours to come over and adjustment me using an emotional technique we are trained in. Upon his arrival and after my adjustment I took myself immediately to the land of transition, began dry reaching (which by the way opens up the cervix!) and two pushes later I birthed another baby… a boy!

It is important you birth where you feel most comfortable and have a supportive team you can trust too. I also made sure I was regularly adjusted – weekly in fact. I wanted to make sure my hot air balloon was well balanced and open to receive the communication required to grow and birth a baby.

If you’re about to birth or planning a pregnancy sometime soon then perhaps you may like to ask yourself these questions:

How am I feeling about being a parent? (first time or second time)

How can I create the birth experience I want rather than what others tell me to have?

How does my partner feel about my birth choice?

Does my partner believe I can birth naturally?

Do I believe I can birth naturally?

Am I empowered to say “Yes!” to those I want at my birth and “No!” to those I don’t want there?

What’s my birth plan?

           3)      Dystocia – Iatrogenic

Right now you might be saying to yourself “iatro….what?” If you have been a reader of Vital Moms for some time then you would have heard me say this word. I predicted at a recent live presentation that this would be a household word within 5 years. Iatrogenic is the system itself. What is the system I am referring to? It’s the medicalisation of birth and the system the majority of people use for their “health” care. You would have read under point 2 emotional Dystocia the article referencing fear of birth and how when a mother is in this state intervention more often than not is rolled out because everything slows down.

Once there is a thought or a seed planted to the mother that the birth has “slowed down” it generally does. I want you to imagine for a moment, as I digress a little here, that you decide you want to get fit and off you trot to the local the gymnasium to build some strength. You find a fabulous full length mirror, some dumbbells and begin “pumping the iron” performing bicep curl after bicep curl until your biceps get a little tired and tight, cannot contract and you decide to take a rest. So rest you do wondering off to work on your legs instead. Within 10 minutes you are good for another round of bicep curls.

Hold this picture of your biceps in your mind and now think of your uterus. A very strong organ, contracting for hours and at some point in time it says “you know what… I need to rest. And rest it does. It all slows down. This is called THE RESTING PHASE, not recognized by many people, but it is part of the birth process. When the contractions slow down we immediately assume something is wrong “you’re not progressing!” Well hang on perhaps you just need a rest, take a breather, some time out, lay down, sleep if need be and then you can go again. However most people are not thinking this way and I feel that’s when we get into the “iatrogenic dystocia” of birth where our body is looked at like a machine that is meant to keep going and going and when it stops we don’t look to support it in this “resting phase” we look for ways to “reboot it”. The rebooting usually comes in the form of intervention: break membranes, Syntocin/Pitocin to artificially move labour along, epidural/gas for pain relief, mother now birthing on her back, episiotomy because baby maybe now stuck, instrumental vaginal “delivery” to suck or pull the baby out, instrument fails and a C- section is the end result. All perhaps because this “resting phase” was not respected or acknowledged and the medicalisation of birth took over.

The process of birth is a highly organised system of events that takes place in order for the mother and baby to birth…together. We have seen here three ways in which the process of birth can be slowed down known as Dystocia. I encourage all Vital Moms readers if you are pregnant or planning a pregnancy or know of a friend who is pregnant to find a chiropractor, receive regular adjustments for neurological integrity, work with the emotions of pregnancy and birth, respect and trust the “resting phase” of the birth process and find a team you can trust; people willing to work with you and your birth choices. More information please visit site www.vitalmoms.com/blog

Are You In A Rush To Get Your Health Back?

Every process we go through requires time. Whether it is the aging process, the birth of a child, job promotions, graduating, or learning new skills like walking, talking or riding a bike. Reaching new milestones and new levels in understanding takes time. I imagine we all agree with this so much so that we place a value on it. For instance, time is money and medals, every second counts, there’s no time to waste, if we don’t go now we won’t have time, if its not there in 30 minutes it’s free! People even get impatient in the drive-through for the “fast food”. Most people want instant gratification and immediate results, just like the instant microwave dinner that is “cooked” in one minute.

So many things take time. Cooking a turkey at Christmas takes three or four hours, pregnancy takes nine months and career achievements take time. Yet when it comes to our bodies we seem to be a lot less tolerant of the process of time. The innate time of your body is vastly different to the man-made time of “I want it done yesterday.”

Anything quick, artificial or that has an easy option to it will probably only give you short term results and may have an altered long-term effect on your body.

Let’s look at the nervous system.

When we have a sprained ankle, we generally stay off it. When we break our arm or leg, it is usually put in plaster and immobilized. Is it because the arms and legs are so imperative to daily activities that we notice it more when something is amiss? When plaster is applied to a fracture, the fracture is immobilized and you could be out of pain within days. Does that mean you can remove the plaster and start using the arm or leg again? Certainly not. The cast reminds us that we have time left in the healing process. A scab on the skin reminds us that the healing process is still taking place. But what is there to remind us that the nervous system is regaining its optimum health expression? Nothing. This is the risk we get into when we think that because there is no scab, pain or cast, and no symptoms, we must be “healthy” and healed.

It has been my observation that we tend to follow the recommendations outlined to us for healing when it is an extremity, such as the appendicular skeleton that is symptomatically expressing in some way and preventing us from undertaking certain activities. Yet we seem to easily compromise the central aspects of the body, the axial skeleton. In my observation small indicators of pain such as a niggle, headache, or a dull ache are ignored until we are unable to bear it any longer. We then reach for care outside of our self, often entertaining unrealistic expectations about the healing process. When we think in this way, we live in the allopathic paradigm where something from the outside supposedly takes care of the inside. We want change as soon as possible, however are usually unwilling to change any of our lives (physically, chemically or emotionally) in order to help the body to help itself in the healing it can do. People often want change at all costs, and they invariably want it rectified yesterday however it is not until later in life that the “quick fix” early in life is paid for.

When people come into the practice, one of the most important pieces of information I share with them is the initial tissue healing time of the body, which generally takes 6-8 weeks. Even though we may experience a reduction in their symptomatic expression, that doesn’t mean we are healed and healthy. All it means is that the symptoms are reduced and the body is now able to communicate with itself more clearly. The body is still on its journey to healing, but is not yet healed. However, what if we changed your emotional (thought) and chemical (toxin) realities as well and not just the physical (trauma)? 

George was eight when he came into the office with his parents who were beside themselves, trying to work out how to alleviate the severe constipation their son had been experiencing for two-and-a-half weeks. They had tried all and sundry with little success. George described passing a stool as very painful. At this stage George was trying to hold on rather than experience the pain of attempting to go to the bathroom.

Upon receiving a series of physical adjustments, he started to change his internal environment and his body was able to coordinate the peristaltic movement to propel the fecal material through the intestinal system. The adjustments changed his life. No longer was he straining to pass a stool nor having the feeling of being bound up. An emotional technique used in the practice was also run to help the family deal with any emotional issues felt to be binding him up. George had recently changed schools and a new sibling had been introduced to the family. His parents found a huge relief when they were asked certain questions about his life to date. After the first adjustment, young George was able to pass a stool. His body, post-adjustment, was now coordinating a series of events in order to create greater states of health. The emotional issues brought to the surface were able to be integrated for the parents and you could see George’s body relax into a feeling of “somebody now knows what I have been experiencing.”

The chemical component was also discussed, which his parents were also dedicated to changing. George’s life had changed as a result of this interaction. On subsequent appointments to the office George found himself racing to the toilet before getting adjusted: his body knew how the adjustment would be received and his innate intelligence was allowing him to reach new states in his health expression at all levels.

Now, George and his parents could have decided after one successful trip to the bathroom that he no longer needed to work on this area of his health expression. Yet he and his parents realized that it takes time to readjust the internal system and, likewise, acknowledged they needed to invest time into this process.

This young man still receives chiropractic care today ― his family recognizes that the adjustment is NOT about alleviating symptoms from the body in order to “feel better” but rather allowing your life to be the best it can be in all areas. He’s now a 16-year-old budding sports professional, and upon completion of school wants to make a go of it on the professional circuit.

The emotional component of healing is an interesting process for a lot of people. Some people, although wishing to get well, actually find they benefit from where they are in their present situation. Making a decision between the supposed benefits they receive from their current situation, and the genuine benefit that comes with having each system in their body functioning at its optimum level is a challenge for them. Some want change but are too scared to embrace the new self to truly see what they may gain from the change. Most only see the loss. 

All processes in life take time ― whether a flower is blossoming, the sun is rising, a storm is brewing, or tissue is healing. With time comes clarity and perspective ― at all levels: physical, chemical and emotional.

I appreciate that the power that made the body has the ability to heal the body. It simply… takes time.

More information please visit site www.vitalmoms.com/blog

Teach Your Child To Read The Ingredients!

At times I feel like a giant ogre with my kids as I harp on about food and making wise choices. I am sure as a parent you have felt this at times too. I unapologetically say “No!” in front of people now if I feel the food offered is not appropriate. I’m no longer concerned what other parents may think of my song and dance about what our kids can and cannot have.  I make sure our kids go to places with food so something is available for them if they decide within themselves to make a wise choice not to eat what is offered to them. They know we eat organic food and that we approach health differently to the majority of their friends. They too are comfortable with saying to people “no thank you.”

As I was registering our boys for this year’s Rugby season I was under no illusion that companies are happy to sponsor kids activities – Kellogs, Nestle etc – and provide “snacks” when they go to register. What I didn’t expect to see in the goodie bag was a chart titled “Key Foods For A Rugby Players Pantry” listing foods “appropriate” for kids and adults alike. My mouth dropped when I read it so much so that I took a photo to show you what they were recommending!

Let me go through and point out a few of the items on the list and shed some light on them. A high number of items on the list suggest coming from cans in fact there are six on the list and a possible nine depending on how you purchase these items.

Here’s a light shedder…

Independent laboratory tests found a toxic food-can lining ingredient associated with birth defects of the male and female reproductive systems in over half of 97 cans of name-brand fruit, vegetables, soda, and other commonly eaten canned goods. The study was spearheaded by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) and targeted the chemical bisphenol A (BPA), a plastic and resin ingredient used to line metal food and drink cans. There are no government safety standards limiting the amount of BPA in canned food. While some companies are phasing out the use of BPA they are instead replacing BPA with BPS (bisphenol S). BPS was an originally deterred chemical and its now being used in products according to a study conducted from researchers at the University of Texas and later published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. Saying no to BPA (bisphenol A) worked and companies have reduced the amount they use. Now it is time to say no to BPS which is in fact doing the same thing as BPA, although thought to be “milder” it is estrogen mimic. It is however a chemical non-the-less.(biosphenol A) (biosphenol A) because it mimics estrogen in the body, and has been linked to a variety of health A (biosphenol A) because it mimics estrogen in the body, and has been linked to a variety of health challenges – cancer, reproduction defects, neurological defects, obesity and diabetes certainly made a difference. Now it is time to “SAY NO to BPS.” BPS is in fact doing the same thing as the BPA although thought to be milder in its estrogen mimic! A chemical none-the-less.

Next up is trim milk powder and low fat biscuits! Gosh where do I start with this? We seem to be obsessed as a society with consuming no fat. My motto for our family is if you are going to eat something then consume it as close to it’s original form as possible, this includes eating the fat contained within a food. I feel the danger comes when we begin to pull apart food, extracting the “fat” and then attempt to “put it back together.” The biggest health by-in by societies across the globe in the 80’s, 90’s and 00’s was the need for less fat and today we are one of the fattest populations on earth. Clearly that practice didn’t work! Fat is required and I urge you to be leary of “low fat,” “trimmed” “foods.” Again read the ingredients and look at the marketing of the packet. If it says “low” anything or has a “tick of approval” put it back on the shelf and run to the perimeter of your local supermarket where you can continue to shop. Least processed ingredients are kept on the perimeter of the stores whilst all processed foods are contained in the middle where no refrigeration is required! Umm…

Last one I want to draw your attention to is Milo. Our kids each had a 200g can of Milo in their “goodie” bag. When we arrived home I asked them to each get their cans out of their goodie bag. We sat on the couch and went through the ingredients – milk solids, vegetable oil, maltodextrin, flavour and soy lecithin just some of the ingredients.  They asked the question “mum, why do people say it’s okay to have a little if you don’t have it all the time?” It was a beautiful question and one I took a while to answer during which I shared this quote with them…

“It is the inability to see the effects of chronic, low-level toxicities on human health that has been, and remains, our greatest failing as intelligent beings.”

                                                   - Dr Boyd Haley

In other words I shared how the “toxic little times” add up over time affecting the nerve system and our ability to express health to our highest level. We then create a health situation, e.g. dis-ease and at times disease that challenges us to wake up and change the way we do life. Some of you right now might be thinking “she’s taking it too far.” My response is it’s actually not about the Milo it’s about the opportunity to educate. If I’m presented with an opportunity to educate my children on health, in this situation ingredients, packaging and marketing then I will jump at the opportunity to share the wisdom in seeing what most don’t. The kids understood the “lesson” and by the end of the conversation and openness in sharing they happily threw the cans of Milo away settling instead for a beautiful homemade organic hot chocolate with oat milk, all made from scratch!

 Thoughts? More information please visit site.www.vitalmoms.com

What Our Child’s Behaviour Teaches Us About Ourself!

Have you ever found yourself wondering where the child you once knew went? One day your child can make a decision and the next day they won’t. Or one day they can tell you what they want for breakfast and the next day they can’t? Have you ever wondered why this behavior suddenly came about? Perhaps you’re putting it down to growing and maturing in some way. What if I said there could be a missing link within your family dynamic that might be being over looked… would you want to dig in a little deeper to investigate? Yes?

Well first let me give this missing link some context for you and then I’ll share an example from my own life to help illustrate my point. Suppression of an emotion shuts down that specific communication link with the self.  For example let’s take indecision as the emotion that we are suppressing. When suppressed we are left unable to make a decision; a fairly obvious example.

The suppressed emotion, although not being expressed by the self, will be expressed somewhere.

This expression usually occurs three ways:

               1.       Within our body – signs, symptoms, dis-ease, disease

               2.       Via a person

               3.       At times both 1 & 2

It is the second point, ‘via a person’, where I want to dive in deeper using this example of indecision. The expression of the suppressed emotion is usually so close to us that we do not see ourselves suppressing an emotion but rather we see another person expressing an emotion not common to them e.g. being unable to make a decision. More often we wonder why an adult or child is like “x” and set about doing everything we can to control it. This need for control can be emphasized through parenting in particular ways or via medications administered to “mellow” out the behaviour! Quite often however we do not look at our family dynamic to see who might be the one expressing our own suppressed emotion.

Let me share this example with you to make the point a little clearer…

When I had finished writing my award winning and global selling book The Vital Truth a publisher in the USA was looking at picking it up for circulation and publishing. It did take long for them to agree to going ahead. During one conversation they explained to me how they would market the book.  As I listened I thought this is not the way I want the book brought to the public and if it is marketed this way it will completely go against what the book is about.  They gave me four weeks to make up my mind, in other words to sign and agree to their terms of circulation and publishing. I agonised for the full four weeks.  During this time making a decision was one of the hardest things I had to do. On one side there was a lucrative enticement and on the other side was my moral responsibility to speak the truth about health and have it marketed as such. As a person who can usually make a decision in a snap I found myself extremely challenged with making up my mind.

What was interesting, however was what occurred within the family during this four weeks…

I felt like I was taking my time to make the decision, slowly absorbing all the different options. Our middle boy who can usually make a decision in a snap, just like me, became quite indecisive. This is usually a child who knows what he wants to eat, makes smart health decisions, knows when he wants to go to the toilet, knows when he is tired etc. Suddenly he could no long make those decisions. Once a young child with direction seemed, at the time, to be floating along not knowing what he wanted. As a mum I began to get frustrated that his clear decisive self had drifted off. It wasn’t until week four of my own indecisiveness that I saw a pattern being played out in the family – between him and I. I awoke on the last day of the fourth week that the publisher had given me to make my decision. I went upstairs to my office rang the publishing company told them I wouldn’t be going ahead and then came back downstairs with a pep in my step and a calmness within myself for having made the decision. As I went to organise breakfast for the kids out comes our middle boy still in his pyjamas, rubbing his eyes asking for yoghurt and fruit. I turned and looked at him as if he was a different child.

And then the lesson came…what gets suppressed gets expressed!

During the four weeks when I couldn’t make a decision the person who most resembled me at the time was the one that showed up to demonstrate what I needed to learn.  Here was our middle boy, who can usually make a decision, like me, who was suddenly not making decisions, reflecting me! As soon as I made a decision about the publishing company our personalities resurfaced. I saw him once again as a person who could make a decision. Remarkable how our lessons come to pass if we are open to learning and seeing the symbiotic relationship we have with one another within our family.

Here are some steps you can take to assist with indentifying the suppression/expression behaviour within your family:

Grab a few pieces of blank paper.

On the piece of paper write all the characteristics, traits or emotions you see your child doing that irritates, frustrates or annoys you.

Take one of the characteristics, traits or emotions and write it at the top of one of the blank pieces of paper.

Ask yourself “where am I doing that exact same thing in my life” and remember it can be expressing anywhere within your life.

Take the example of our middle boy and I once again…

I saw his indecisive being expressed in the familial area of my life, my indecisiveness however was being expressed in my vocational area of life; my work.  So the expression of your suppression is not always in the area or your life where you “see it” expressing in someone else. The person that best resembles you is the person who shows up at the time and that can be in any of the seven areas of life – spiritual, mental, vocational, financial, familial, social or physical. Our middle boy resembles me in everyday life with his decisiveness so of course he was the one that showed up to give me the lesson to assist me with making my decision about the publishing company! Perfect. More information please visit site.www.vitalmoms.com