Crawford's Birth Story

Crawford’s Birth Story

There’s a special amount of mental fortitude needed when your first baby comes 10 days early and your second comes 4 days late.

Look, as a whole, chiropractors tend to really cook our babies! We trust our bodies and the process and typically let babies cook as long as they need. One of the most well known chiropractic principles is “there is no process that does not take time.” And I wasn’t going to do anything to force this baby to come before he/she was ready.

BUT when my first baby gave me false expectations by coming so early, it really was hard on me mentally to still be pregnant so much longer. Even I started second guessing things. “Was there something wrong with my body that it won’t go into labor this time?” “Is there something wrong with the baby?” It was Thursday and I was two days away from being pregnant two full weeks longer with this baby than Hollis, and my amazing midwife, Kayce (Nations Midwifery) , could obviously see it written all over my face. All she had to ask was “how’s it going?!” and I bust into tears. And I don’t often cry…but maybe I needed an emotional release to go into labor!? She was amazing at validating my feelings when I kept saying I know I’m crazy for being this upset when I’m only a couple days past my “due date” and I don’t even really pay attention to due dates. BUT my mental fortitude was diminishing by the day.

Fast forward to 3:30am Saturday morning (yep, this baby will probably never live down making me wait TWO WEEKS longer than sister did ), and I woke up to pretty moderate contractions. I sat in bed trying to decide if this was wishful thinking or if things were really happening. But not even an hour later, contractions had gotten pretty intense and were already 5 minutes apart. I told myself I was going to wait until 5:00am to call our midwife Kayce, and knowing my first labor went pretty quick, she got ready and head our way.

I told her I was going to hop in the bath tub for a bit to rinse off, and when I did, things stalled…

Looking back, I was SO stuck in my head. I had spent the last 2 weeks being annoyed that I was still pregnant instead of protecting my mind and preparing to birth this baby. I also was counting the minutes and comparing it to labor with Hollis and was getting frustrated that things weren’t progressing as quickly. This labor was going to be longer than hers. I laugh now because I don’t know why I thought this baby was going to come quicker?! Baby hasn’t been in a hurry this whole time.

Somewhere around 10ish, Kayce asked if it’d be okay if she went to a coffee shop to give us some space to enjoy our last morning as a family of 3. Yall, midwives are a special breed and have an uncanny ability to read the room. She made sure I wasn’t going to feel abandoned in that moment, and I definitely didn’t. I also knew I probably needed some time to myself to get things back on track. So after she left, I also sent Hollis and Maxx to go drive in the car so I knew Hollis would get a nap.

So with a quiet house, I said some prayers, got a few things prepped and set out like I wanted, cleared my head and got to doing things I know to do. Luckily it was Saturday, I text Dr. Ericka (@empoweredlifechiro) to see if she could come adjust me. She got there about 12, adjusted me, and did cranial and spinning babies work. After that, I alternated between sitting on an exercise ball, the dilation station (if you know, you know!), walking around the house, one sided lunge stretches, and whatever else felt right while doing some homeopathics.

Around 3:15 I text Kayce that things were picking up again. And by 3:30, I urgently messaged her a picture of my contractions timer showing them going from 5 minutes apart to under 2 minutes apart almost instantly. This was what we were all worried would happen. That my body would progress so fast that no one would make it out to our house in the country in time. Kayce said she and the other midwives were on their way and would be there in 15 minutes! I asked her to call our fabulous videographer, Erin, too (I’ll get the timing of calling you right, eventually!). I then text my mom to come take care of Hollis so Maxx could focus on me, but really didn’t think she was going to make it in time.

The next 15 minutes we’re a little bit of chaos… we had a naked toddler playing in the kitchen sink. I was definitely in transition working through intense contractions leaned over the island. Maxx was trying to was trying to multitask hip squeezes every 90 seconds during my contractions, a toddler trying to figure out what was happening with Mommy, and trying not to overflow the birth tub (bless him!).

Everyone knew this baby was coming and coming fast. Kayce looked at me and told me, if I want to have this baby now, let’s have this baby. But if I wanted Erin to make it in time to video (and I did!), that I might want to try laying on my left side to give her a bit more time to get here. So I laid on the bed willing my body to wait just a little longer for Erin to make it…

I truly don’t know the timing of anything from here on out. But I heard the sound of Erin’s voice at the door and knew I could have this baby now! I still had my personality about me because I looked at her and said “what took you so long?!” Everyone laughed and Kayce told me I could get in the birth tub now if I wanted! Even though the time in the tub was some of the most intense moments of my life, it was also the sweetest with my husband and Hollis hugging on me and being the best cheerleaders.

At 5:06, Crawford Thomas Godfrey came into the world and I got to catch him in the comfort and safety of our own home! If you talked to me at all during pregnancy, you probably know I was convinced we were having another girl. So to find out we had a little boy was a huge shock! But he has been the sweetest addition to our family. Hollis has thrived so much better in her big sister roll than I ever though she would! Life as a family of FOUR is so sweet!

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Our Fabulous Birth Team:

Kayce Glenn, Midwife

Erin Stetson, Videographer/Photographer

Dr. Ericka Lupardus

Jasmin Kanevski, Midwife, Assist

HEALTH CARE vs. DISEASE CARE

HEALTH CARE vs. DISEASE CARE

There is a strong grassroots movement in the United States and Canada toward a more innate, gentle, and philosophical, health care system; it is a movement that also calls for a non-invasive and non-drug approach – unless abso-bloody-lutely necessary.

One reason for this shift is a growing discontent among parents with our present health care delivery. I use the words “health care” with chagrin; certain aspects don’t quite fit the truth – especially today!

Dr. Robert Mendelsohn, a very popular US physician who wrote a syndicated health column in the late 80’s one said, “One grandmother is easily worth two MDs!” I pass no judgement.

Many parents reading this newsletter will be surprised to learn the word HEALTH does not even appear in many medical dictionaries. Why is that? Simple answer: Medicine doesn’t deal with Health. Gasp! It deals with disease and sickness.

Look…We have the best medical technology on the face of the planet and yet hospitals are always full! Consider the fact that people being sick can be very profitable. Surprised? Yes! There are huge profits being made from people being ill. I know you had already suspected that truth. Think about it, the more sickness, the more profits! ARRRGH!

This is the business of health care. Frustrating? I’m sure you agree!

This discontent with our present health care system is causing ordinary people to pose a threat to the authority of the family doctor and the specialist. Enter a patient who is very well educated and asks many questions. Even more threatening is that he/she wants answers to those questions. Most physicians have difficulty providing cogent, logical answers that make sense to people. (Take this pandemic for example. Have you noticed many of the mandates and orders from those in charge just plain do not make any sense?)

You are beginning to learn that the quest for radiant health is not at all what you thought. It’s about having your body function at an exceptional level – not simply being in raptures because you can still put on your own panty hose! You are beginning to understand that health is not how you feel.

It’s all about how you are and how well your body is executing the health program you were born with. And that realization is huge! It is the crux. I’ll continue in the next newsletter.

Ice-Age Babies

You probably have not given this much thought, but there are cryogenic centers throughout North America that have babies on ice! Yes. Human eggs and sperm are placed in vats of cold! These artificial wombs are refreshed with liquid nitrogen twice daily and their occupants are on an indefinite standstill. Ok…you are wondering why?

The answer may surprise you:

Listen…There is no “right time” to have a baby. A great number of parents, however, place their eggs and sperm in cryogenic vats while they are busy pursuing a career…and fear their ovaries may be placed in peril with the passage of time! So…eggs and sperm are frozen until a couple is ready for the green light to have that baby. And statistics indicate that as parents become more educated, the less likely they are to have children. And then there are circumstances where a woman is single and concerned about the viability of her eggs when she decides to start a family at some future point. Cancer patients, who face infertility because of chemo or radiation treatments, also “freeze” their eggs and sperm so that they’ll be able to have children in their future. The reasons are many. Although still largely experimental, cryogenics is thriving!

Innate Intelligence:

You are wondering: WHAT? What is that? And why is it so important? I’ve used these words when explaining your recovery to you, so here it is: It has been coined the ‘Wisdom of the Body” by some, “Nature” by others, and “The Force” by George Lucas, producer of Star Wars. Chiropractors refer to this force as Innate Intelligence. It simply refers to your body’s own organizational ability and its ability to self-heal, self-regulate, selfthrive, and self-adapt.

Deepak Chopra said it best: “Intelligence is present everywhere in our bodies . . . our own intelligence is far superior to any we can try to substitute from the outside.”

There is a force we have inside us that guides our growth, our development, and our life. Examples of this force are ever-present and are in our everyday lives. My very favorite is the bumblebee. It never ceases to amaze me.

According to scientists and computer experts, the bumblebee can’t fly. Because of its weight, and ratio of its wings to its weight, the dihedral angle of wind assault on its wings, the speed of wing movements and other physical variables, it is mathematically impossible for a bumblebee to fly. However, bumblebees are not aware of this and fly anyway, defying all laws of science known to man. Innate Intelligence? Go figure!

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On a Lighter Note:

Children writing to God:

“Dear God, Are you really invisible or is that just a trick?” - Lucy

“Dear God: Instead of letting people die and having to make new ones, why don’t you just keep the ones you got now?” – Jane

“Dear God: I want to be just like my Daddy when I grow big but not with so much hair all over.” – Sam

“Dear God: Did you mean for a Giraffe to look like that or was it an accident?” – Norma “Dear God: I keep waiting for Spring. It never come yet. Don’t forget.” – Mark

“Dear God: You don’t have to worry about me. I always look both ways.” – Dean

“Dear God: Not a creature was stirring except for my mom who was busting her ass to make it happen!” – Emilia

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Questions that Elude Answers:

If the Professor on that old sit-com, Gilligan’s Island, can make a radio out of a beached coconut, why could he not fix the hole in the boat?

If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from veggies, what is baby oil made from???

If a hearing-impaired individual must go to Court, do they still call it a “hearing?”

If electricity comes from electrons, where does morality come from? I told you….

Talk with you next month……… :D

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SOO…

If you are tired of being stuck in the traditional “health” care model and want another approach, contact us today! We can’t wait to welcome you into the Prime Chiropractic family!

And as always, if you have any questions, or would information on any health topic, it would be my pleasure to help you!

ADHD and Chiropractic: A Match Made in Heaven

ADHD and Chiropractic: Part 2

A couple of weeks ago I really got into the very contentious and controversial issue of ADHD. Many people have strong opinions on this subject – and I can’t blame them. It deals with our children. So let’s continue…….

The late Dr. Robert Mendelson, M.D., one of the most respected pediatricians in North America, and a self-proclaimed medical “heretic” felt that it could be our perception that may be at fault.  “Is it the child who is hyperactive,” he asked, “or is it that the average earthling is no longer excited about life?”  Interesting thought.  And some authorities, Dr. Peter Breggin being one of them, feel that ADHD should be renamed to “DADD—Dad Attention Deficit Disorder.”  The feeling is that a lack of parental attention and lack of discipline could be the cause. Hmmmmm….

To treat this strange, new “affliction,” children are most often placed on the drug Ritalin, categorized as a Class II narcotic. To bring this into perspective, Class I drugs are those substances that even a licensed physician can’t prescribe, eg: Heroin, LSD, etc. Class II are those substances that are also addictive but may have some limited medical value, eg: Ritalin, Cocaine, etc. Class III and IV are substances that have the potential for abuse, such as Valium, etc. I also need to add that there are other drugs such as Adderall that are used for ADHD and are placed in the same classification.

As parents, you may not realize that Ritalin is highly addictive and that is why it is placed under the same classification as cocaine. Ritalin is a psychotropic drug; it alters behavior and a child’s perception of the world. The purpose of this drug is to force the child to obey (It also has another, more sinister purpose, which will become all too clear as you read on). I feel it robs children of their individuality and I wonder if we are not turning our children into robots! 

In his book, Talking Back to Ritalin, Dr. Peter Breggin notes that there is evidence Ritalin can cause permanent damage to a child’s brain and its function. “Pediatricians, parents, and teachers are
not aware of these hazards, because the ill effects of this drug have been ignored and suppressed, in order to encourage the sale of this drug.” Nice.

There have been very few conclusive research studies done on the long-term effects of Ritalin, however, Johnson and Stewart found that:

83% of children had trouble with frequent lying.
60% of children were still overactive and rebellious.
59% had contact with police.
52% were destructive.
34% threatened to kill their parents. (This is definitely a no-no!)
15% contemplated suicide.
Definitely not popular side effects! 

Let’s look at some of the physiological effects of Ritalin: It causes,

1.      Decreased blood flow to the brain, an effect recently also shown to be caused by cocaine. It is associated with impaired thinking ability and memory loss.
2.      Disruption of growth hormone, leading to suppression of growth
3.      Possible shrinkage (atrophy) or other permanent physical abnormalities in the brain.
4. Decreased ability to learn (which is one of the reasons for the drug in the first place).

Are there any side-effects? Plenty.

There are cases where a child has suddenly collapsed from a heart attack caused by long-term Ritalin use. This was the finding of the medical examiner who investigated the sudden death of a young Michigan boy. Ritalin, over time, causes changes in the small blood vessels that supply the heart muscles with blood and oxygen.

As you may have guessed, the conclusions of the medical examiner who arrived at these findings were hotly debated. Experts feel that Ritalin is very “safe” and that there is no need for concern because such cases are rare and statistically insignificant. They are indeed. However, it is very significant to the families who lost their children! Don’t you just love politics?

“Ritalin and other stimulants are currently prescribed to millions of children in the hope of improving their supposed hyperactivity, inattention, and impulsivity,” Dr. Breggin warns. He presents evidence that these drugs “work” by producing robotic or zombie-like behavior in children.  This enforced docility and obedience can produce a few weeks of subdued behavior but has no positive effect on academic achievement and no positive long-term effects at all. Contrary to claims by drug advocates, giving Ritalin to a child does not help prevent future problems such as school failure or delinquency, he emphasizes.

Ritalin’s lack of effectiveness has been proven by hundreds of studies, but has not been revealed to doctors, teachers or parents. “Parents and teachers and even doctors have been badly misled by drug company marketing practices,” says Breggin. “Drug companies have targeted children as the new market.

How did this begin? It all began with Dr. Stephen Breuning who did the initial research on Ritalin. He was found to have “knowingly, willfully, and repeatedly engaged in misleading and deceptive practices in reporting research.” According to the National Institute of Mental Health(NIMH), Breuning did not conduct his research as described in his grant application; neither did he obtain the results he claimed in his reports.

He was also the first researcher to be convicted of research fraud, was sentenced to sixty days in prison, ordered to reimburse $11,352 to the University of Pittsburgh, where he worked, and placed on five years of probation. The U.S District Judge who sentenced Breuning said that he “will pay dearly for the rest of his life.”  I am more concerned with the millions of our children’s lives his “research” has touched.

Breggin further said, “The public might be shocked to learn that the vast majority of studies for FDA approval of psychiatric drugs such as Ritalin show them to be of no value whatsoever. The drug company researchers are allowed to pick out two, often marginally or questionably successful studies, as proof that the drugs work.”

Health care advocates say that physicians are now routinely diagnosing children with ADHD. They find it easier to write a prescription for Ritalin and Prozac, than discuss diet or parenting skills with the child’s family. Why? The public has simply accepted this “quick fix” as the norm. This is called marketing. Only in North America!  You may have guessed by now that there are billions of dollars at stake.

In order to promote sales of Ritalin, Ciba/Novartis has created a parent ‘support’ group called CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). This group received funding from the drug manufacturer to increase public awareness of Ritalin as a treatment for ADHD, and to suppress any alternatives. 

There are approximately 700 chapters of this organization across North America. CHADD conducts most meetings in schools, giving them an image of legitimacy and government sanction. It does not provide parents with information about ADHD mostly about the benefits of Ritalin. As well, it does not reveal its conflict of interest ties with Ciba/Novartis.

One of the functions of CHADD was to promote the concept that Ritalin should be available as a non-prescription drug. In other words, one could walk into a drug store and obtain it OTC. Imagine your ten-year-old buying narcotics at the corner store.  As it is, however, kids “trade” and buy Ritalin from each other on a mini “black market” which seems to exist in most high schools and even the primary grades, much to the delight of Ciba/Novartis. There is something not right here.

A protest march organized recently by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, and led by Dr. Julian Whitaker MD., an alternative medicine guru, as well as Dr. Fred Baughman, a pediatric neurologist, officially announced that ADHD is a “mental disorder” propagated at the expense of school children by the drug manufacturer.

Dr. Baughman stated, “Twenty-five years of research has failed to validate ADHD...as a disease, or as anything wrong with the child. ADHD has no biologic or scientific validity whatsoever. It is a total fraud.”

Why is this happening? These drugs are being disguised and cleverly marketed to parents as something which will help make their children “better.” Parents are told that their child has a ‘chemical imbalance’ in the brain and needs these “chemical balancers” to be healthy. Dr. Fred Baughman, a noted child neurologist, is outraged at the psychiatry profession stating that they essentially work for the pharmaceutical industry to promote legal drug trafficking. He feels that the ADHD“diagnosis,” for example, is fraudulent, and only exists so that normal children can be placed on addictive psychotropic drugs for the sake of profit.

It was Hitler who once said, “if you tell a lie long enough, eventually it will be believed as truth, and the greater the lie, the more people will believe it.”

Dr. Baughman, wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association, “Once children are labelled with ADHD they are no longer treated as normal. Once a psychotropic drug courses through their brain and body, they are, for the first time, physically, neurologically, and biologically abnormal.”

There must be a better way!

Chiropractic doctors have been successfully helping children labelled with ADHD for years. We often find that interference to the function of the nervous system, caused by a Vertebral Subluxation in the spine, is at the heart of the matter.  These vertebral subluxations are often the result of a difficult birth or other trauma and interfere with normal nervous system function and signal transmission. This error then changes a child’s perception and, as a result, behavior.

Look at it this way: A Vertebral Subluxation is an irritant to the nervous system. It is similar to having a pebble in your shoe that you just can’t get rid of!  And we’ve all experienced this.  Chiropractic care is directed at correcting these subluxations thereby making the child’s nervous system function normally. It’s that simple. It is for this reason that it is absolutely imperative to check children for subluxations.

In other cases, this ADHD erratic behavior could be the result of parenting skills, diet, heavy metal toxicity, or simply just being a kid - let’s not forget that one.  If your child has been labelled with ADHD, or is in the process of being labelled, my suggestion would be to talk with me without delay – I can help!

Here are some suggestions that you might find helpful as parents:

• Have your children checked for subluxations.

• Talk with your children; I find that open dialogue is a wonderful way of defusing a potentially explosive situation.

• Spend time with your children.

• Talk with your friends and support groups; you are not alone.

• Do not allow your child to be labelled; often children and their parents tend to live up to that expectation.

• Obtain as many opinions as needed; you’ll find a wide variety.

• Get a hair analysis performed for toxic heavy metals as these can often cause altered behavior.

• The following nutritional supplements are helpful. All of these have a calming effect on the nervous system.

• Vitamin B Complex, Vitamin B3, B5,and B6, and Vitamin C.

• Gamma-aminobutyric Acid (GABA)

• Valerian root extract

• And please have me check your children! Let’s start right here!

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SOO…

If you are tired of being stuck in the traditional “health” care model and want another approach, contact us today! We can’t wait to welcome you into the Prime Chiropractic family!

And as always, if you have any questions, or would information on any health topic, it would be my pleasure to help you!