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Hello, everybody. It’s Dr. B and Elizabeth and happy Autism Awareness Month. We are going to bring you some five golden two no’s in this episode to get you up to speed with what we need to be thinking about in the autism world. So ChiroSecure, thank you again for this opportunity to bring this information.
to the chiropractic profession and to the public. So we’re going to rock and roll. Elizabeth is going to take a bit of a nap while we party and give you five points that you should know. Take a nap and you’ll be back. So number one, let’s look at where we are with autism these days. Let’s take a rewind for a minute and go back to the seventies and eighties where autism was estimated to be like one in 2000 kiddos.
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Okay. Fast forward to 2018, the number was 1 in 44. And if you’re out there, I’ll give you a little pop quiz. What do you think the number is today? It is a staggering 1 in 36 kiddos in the United States is said to have autism. So what’s going on here? So there’s been that controversy. Is it a better diagnosis that we have now?
Is it the fact that we’ve put autism on a spectrum of of severity and disorders? It might be a little bit of both, but let’s face the fact that, Those kiddos that are severely struggling, the non verbals, the behavioral issues, the gastrointestinal issues, the more chronic illness associated with those kiddos on the spectrum we couldn’t have missed those points back in the 70s, 80s, or even 2018.
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So yes, We the numbers are increasing. So why is that? First of all, we’re still at the point number two, I should say. We’re still at the order one male versus females. So let’s take a little bit of dive into why that might be. The theory has been over the years that perhaps Estrogen has a positive influence over neuronal development and neuronal integrity.
So that may be one of the premises why we see more boys and girls on the neurodevelopmental spectrum in general, but four to one definitely with autism, which is interesting because during the COVID pandemic, we also saw that when less women were affected and affected to a lesser severity than men.
And again, the estrogen protective mechanism. Was brought into play. So that gives us women one kudos in our feather in our hat, right? So we need to look at the statistics. We need to look at the male versus female boys versus girls ratio And then what are some of the most? Excuse me Looked at contributing factors to date and one of them one of the biggest ones is prenatal stress So for us that are working in the preconception, prenatal, postnatal period, we really need to look at stress factors.
And stress has drastically increased over the last couple of decades, and especially since the pandemic. So bottom line is we need to educate our patient population on what stress is, and how can we help support that stress, cascade, that stress axis. Prenatal stress is associated with two big factors that is associated with autism.
And those two factors are a preterm birth, early birth, and a low birth weight. So those are the two most studied dynamics in the world of neurodevelopment and in the world of autism. So one of the interesting factors on associated with prenatal stress. is the fact that couples, one of their number one stress sores.
during the prenatal period is having a child that is born with a neurodevelopmental challenge, primary autism. So it’s ironic that the number one concern is having a child with developmental delays, especially autism, and that stress in and of itself, that anxiety based around that in and of itself can potentially lead to prenatal stress and impact neurodevelopment.
Again, addressing that, having that conversation, if you’re working in the preconception and prenatal world, is very important. And then setting up a program to help minimize those stressors on the system and having the parents acknowledge. What are some of the stressors? Is their workload too magnificent?
What is their stressors in their environment, work environment, home environment, meaning chemical wise? What cleaning products are they cleaning with? Because remember, stress is not just emotional stress. at work, at school, relationships with spouses and significant others. That’s one stress, but what are the stresses they’re exposed to?
So look at their environment. What are the cleaning chemicals they’re working with? What are they exposed to at work? What kind of work do they do? Do they maybe make some. Need to make some precautions at work. For instance, if they’re a dental assistant, are they being exposed to nitrous oxide from dental procedures, to x rays, etc?
How can we minimize those loads and minimize those prenatal stressors? How can we advocate for them and teach them more calming techniques, yoga, Pilates, mindfulness, enhancing bagel tone by doing more singing and dancing and humming and bringing that calming parasympathetic tone to their environment.
Okay. So helping look at those prenatal stressors and to minimize those loads get them out in nature, going for walks just having more downtime and more conscious awareness time. So that’s third factors, prenatal stress. Number four is MIA, not Missing in Action, but Maternal Immune Activation Issues.
Very much had been researched for a good decade and then COVID hit. So what’s happening there? Mom’s immune system is going rogue. It’s going crazy. It’s overactive. And that chronic inflammatory load from the mom’s immune system being hyper supersized, affects baby’s immune system and neurodevelopment.
Support the prenatal stressors, support mom’s immune system. That means looking at what she’s eating, minimizing pro inflammatory foods, pro inflammatory environments but also supporting the immune system. Very simple thing. A, support the gut. 80 percent of the immune systems in the gut. Get around a good, nice, general probiotic.
Talk, talk with parents and parents to be about what is their diet like. Can we minimize processed foods? Can we start eating more jerf it, not junk it. Just eat real food. That’s your jerf. And avoid the junk. At least at an 80 20 90 10 ratio, good to bad. Can we start optimally, before conception, eating real food?
Eating good organic meats, if we can, get that organic. Fresh vegetables, fruits, those whole live fruits, rather than the processed spectrum. Alright, get that immune system down. Vitamin, so we got some probiotic support online. Vitamin D, most people in this country, in the United States, are deficient in vitamin D.
It’s going to help support the hormonal and immune cascade. So look at vitamin D levels, some vitamin C, again, just simple basic things to help support the immune system and bring that inflammatory cascade down. If they are coming down with a bacterial viral infection or something, again, getting them in, getting them adjusted, keep that stress axis down, and some very basic immune support.
during that time. And I would do that through the whole pregnancy, actually. So that’s the first four. Now, the fun part. It’s all fun for me, but about 80 percent of kiddos on the spectrum have motor coordination disorders. They’re basically, their ability to move their body through space, their motor skills off.
So about 87 percent of kiddos. In fact, Motor disorders are being touted as one of the number one predictors of a child later on being diagnosed with autism. For you chiropractors out there, you should be going, Oh my gosh, this is our wheelhouse. Because number one, if we have vertebral subluxations, altering paraspinal muscle control, that is going to alter our gross motor control.
So this is where we can just, These are the ones that really shine in this paradigm. There is a lot of study, a lot of research, a lot of time being thrown now into programs to help kiddos on the spectrum enhance their motor control. And this is where it gets really fun. It’s a triad. It’s motor control, social engagement or executive functioning skills, and language development.
It’s a triad. All being all spinning and interacting with each other. So what they’re finding is, if we enhance motor control in these kiddos, it also enhances executive functioning skills, i. e. social engagement, which so many of these kiddos lack, and language acquisition. Motor enhancement leads to social enhancement, leads to language enhancement.
Three of the big things that we see with kiddos that struggle on the spectrum. One of the theories is, think about this, if I put blindfolds on you, and I put earplugs and earmuffs over your ears, and I put gloves on your hands, And I handcuffed, feet cuffed your feet together, right? And so your whole sensory motor paradigm is distorted.
And then I turned you in circles and I wanted you to walk through space. Your anxiety level might go up a bit, right? Because you your vision is distorted. Your movement is distorted. You don’t know how to navigate through space. Now, that might be a gross representation of what it might feel like, but even on a subtle level, 24 7 moving through space in this uncertainty, the brain’s not sure how to move the body through space, and it creates a subtle anxiety.
You don’t want to participate in those activities. Now, what they, what we’re finding in the neuroscience world is The motor part of the brain, the motor part of the cortex, overlaps with a pathway to the adrenal glands. If we have altered motor function, that information is also shared with messages to the adrenal glands, creating a an adrenaline rush and anxiety.
Again, you’re not going to see those kids participate in a lot of these activities. And what they’re finding in the research world is if we can enhance motor control and that more safe feeling within the body, kiddos are more apt to engage in social context in the world, thus leading to more social engagement skills.
And you put those two together and you’ll see an enhancement of language acquisition. Bottom line, chiropractic care can remove those blocks of information from the brain to the body and the body to the brain when it comes to motor movement, thus, and likely enhancing that little kiddo’s ability to go out there and engage in their world, enhancing the learning mechanism for social engagement, bringing on board more executive functioning skills.
and then later language acquisition. So for me, this is just an exciting world where they’re bringing all these aspects of learning and development together and showing how we can be on the forefront of showing how we can help connect the brain to the body and the body of the brain to enhance motor skills.
To thereby being able to also enhance these other skills that these kiddos are lacking. And of course, from the research realm Dr. Heidi Hoick and her team at New New Zealand Chiropractic College has shown in adults several times over that by doing the adjustment, we enhance somatosensory sensory processing.
In the in the prefrontal cortex and our motor control, language control, and social engagement. Those three things that they’re looking at in the autism world are all have a, have a process in that prefrontal cortex. So this is perhaps one of the ways that we’re seeing chiropractic care makes such a fundamental change in those kiddos on the spectrum.
Five things. Look at the stats. We’re now 1 in 36 in this country said to have autism. 4 to 1 boys to girls. Prenatal stress, that has to be your go to. When you’re working in the preconception prenatal period. Immune system in mom. Keep that under wraps. Don’t let it get out of control and Look at motor coordination disorders and get those kiddos under chiropractic care.
So hopefully this helps you again spread the word We need to get out there. ChiroSecure again. Thank you for this opportunity and Elizabeth and I Want to wish you an amazing rest of April and we’ll be back in May for some great New golden pearls for you to help implement into your office and spread the word about chiropractic.
We’ll see you next month in May.
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