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Hello, happy Thursday. This is the third Thursday of January. Welcome to the amazing ChiroSecure, uh, platform. Big use of ChiroSecure again for giving us this opportunity to bring you, um, the Look to the Children’s show. So under house, Dr. Monika Buerger, hopefully you’re all doing fantastic. This, um, great, uh, third Thursday of January, 2121. So today I want to hang out a little bit. I’m getting a lot of questions and emails and blasts on social media and et cetera about what can we do for our little fiddle farts that are so stressed out these days. We are, um, we are in a time where not only the kiddos are stressed out with the adults are stressed out. So today I want to talk about how some things that we might see manifesting in our patient population group. And one of those is primitive reflexes.
So we throw this term around a lot, but one thing to keep in mind is this isn’t just for our little ones. This is really across all ages and all stages. And what I mean is, um, we’re going to see this happening in our adult population as well. And why is that so important? Why do you want to talk about that with on a peat based to show because our kiddos are going to feed off of their parents and the adults they’re around. So we have, um, adult stress ramped up anxiety, um, this unsettling, um, future that we’re trying to look at. So the kiddos are going to pick up on that and that’s especially true with during the prenatal period. So those pregnant mom was out there right now that are high stress. The, the, the, the, uh, the child will actually inherit mom’s stress patterns, mom’s stress resolve moms, um, the way she’s going to respond to her environmental stressors.
So I wanted to pick Moro reflex for, uh, this topic. Uh, the Moro I say is kind of the, uh, head honcho of the reflexes or the head honcho of actually of the sensory motor systems. And what I mean by this are primitive reflexes. Each primitive reflex kind of represents the maturation has part to do with the maturation, um, of our sensory motor systems and how we respond to sensory different sensory cues, sensory feelings, and the Morrow really represents maturation of all of our sensory systems. So the, the ability to respond in a good neuro, uh, integrity to all of our sensory environment, vestibular visual, tactile auditory, that moral reflex kind of runs the roost. So it’s a big kahuna. So when we’re in times of stress, when our resiliency goes down, those primitive reflexes can emerge. So a person, a child, a, the Mar reflects in particular integrates it should no longer be active.
So to speak after the age of about four months. However, if our overall, um, neuro adapted to their ability to handle stress is compromised because of infectious of traumas, whatever those re those reflexes, even if they were integrated, can reemerge. And this can be true with our adult population as well. It’s particularly true after, um, concussion, head trauma, et cetera. So, first lesson first take home. Pearl is we can use this information to assess all of our patients across all pages. And especially if you’re working a family practice paradigm, because if mom or dad are ramped up and stressed out, those kiddos are going to follow, um, and all stages of neural integrity. And what I mean by that is I’m going to show you different ways to assess the Moro reflex. Many of you are, um, first on the trust fall way, but I’m going to show you a couple of different ways, and I’m going to talk about different ways to integrate it depending on a person’s neuro functional capacity.
So let’s dive in and let’s have some fun. All right. So again, the more we flex sometimes has been in the past is referred to as the startle reflex, some will, um, there’s, there’s some controversy on that, um, on using it as the, the term, the startle reflex, it is a, it, the precursor to the Mar reflex, um, is called a fear paralysis reflex, and that develops in utero, and it should be integrated in uterus. We shouldn’t be born with it, but those two kind of go tandem together. And we work with them in the same manner, but again, the more reflects should disappear or integrate it at about four months of age. Um, if you see a little fiddle fart that six, eight, nine months a year old at a still very, um, start very easy, one telltale sign is when you try to go lay them down, they might be asleep and calm in the arms, but you’d go to lay them down.
And that head drops a little bit and they, they wake up and they start all, and then they’re inconsolable after that, they won’t go back to sleep. Um, they’re crying. They’re very much, um, dysregulated and disturbed. Okay. So that’s a telltale sign that that’s, that moral may be still too active. Um, if retained, this is very important. The moral tends to drive us in a more sympathetic dominant state, all the primitive reflex as well, right? Because they’re going to drive us back to that. The brainstem, that primitive part of the brain, these are brainstem reflexes. They don’t have cognitive control. It’s a reflux that makes me want to always break out into that song by the clash we flex. I won’t sing on this. So those would be that know me like the dummy in person I like to sing, but it doesn’t work out well, usually.
So anyway, um, so we, we shift, but the Morrow in particular leaves us in this fight or flight pattern. The Morrow is known as the first breath of life in the child. It’s responsible for that first breath of life in the child. When they’re born. I have seen clinically that, um, those little ones that are born, particularly with the cord around their neck or that, um, needed resuscitation afterward, or need oxygen or anything like that, having to deal with breathing that that Morrow tends to linger longer and tends to be more active throughout life. So just keep that in mind, if you’re looking at a history, um, areas that we want to look at from a spinal standpoint is looking at, um, uh, up regulate the parasympathetic nervous system. Since it will lead us into the sympathetic fight or flight shift, um, the respiratory diaphragm working the diaphragm, the rib cage can be huge because little, any individual that has this actively retained a Mar reflex might be breath holding a lot.
Um, they might not be expanding their red page. Um, well, and so we get some, uh, lack of oxygen, good oxygen flow concerns. This, um, also is very much tied with adrenal activity. When the adrenals tank out our immune system can be compromised. Um, we see things like allergies, eczema, asthma, um, and poor immune integrity associated with an active Mar reflex. So keep that in mind. Um, this can also really drive us into that limit, what I call limbic lock and load mode, and, uh, being held hostage by our amygdala, our fearmonger. So we can see anxieties and depressions and so forth associated with this constant Moro reflex, um, and very much, um, high, uh, muscle spasms, muscle spasticity, um, especially at the posterior muscles, the extensor muscles can be hypertonic and stress all the time, the posterior calf muscles. So these individuals, you might have them doing stretching routines as stretching routines, and you’re like, why can’t I get these muscles to relax?
They’re constantly stuck in that cortisol state because that morals fired up too much. So, um, Moro things like Annette, being able to unfold to not focus at one thing at a time, kind of that squirrel mode, okay. Poor impulse control, poor emotional maturity, um, easily distracted and that the poor impulse control and emotional maturity that comes because that prefrontal cortex is usually flipped off when we’re stuck in with these primitive reflexes. Um, so we’re stuck in that primitive part of our brain. So our executive functioning skills are not as great, um, aggressive, hypersensitive, anxious, startles, easy, a big one is having trouble paying visual attention to the center. They tend to pay attention to the periphery there everything’s distractive. So if we take this into the context of trying to sit and study or listen to in class, or as an adult, listen in a large lecture hall, we might be deferring our visual attention to the periphery all the time.
And, and so again, that squirrel attention. So we’re missing a lot of that information coming in. Um, they might crave sugar or caffeine, those stimulants to keep their adrenals driving because they’re, you know, burning out so much with their adrenals, um, things that, um, poor balance and coordination stamina we’ve talked, you know, brief some of this here already, um, blood sugar levels, blood sugar levels could be a big one because they’re constantly that sympathetic dominant shift. And, um, the adrenals are dysregulated, so they can, big times a blood sugar drops are between 10 30 and 1130 in the morning and three and four in the afternoon. So essentially after breakfast and lunch. So watch these individuals again, not just your kiddos, but your adults as well. Do we need to help supplement them with more blood sugar stabilizing snacks? Okay. Um, good proteins, good fats, et cetera.
They may be hypersensitive to light touch, sound, smell, or our sensory system, um, very troubled with adaptability. They want to make sure that they know what’s coming. They want to be the predictable situ in predictable situations. So, because they want to, they don’t change it. Routines is not a great thing because they want to know what’s going to feel like in the situation that they’re going to be presented in. So if they’re familiar, they know they’re going to be walking into their classroom and what that feels like, what it smells like, how loud it is and everything. But we switched that up and them and say open today, you’re going to go to Mrs. Jones class. Instead, they might come become unhinged because they’re always on guard and they don’t know what they’re going to feel like in Mrs. Jones is class. What’s going to fill out like to their brain.
Okay. Um, they can have trouble with hyperactive activity and fatigue. Um, because again, they’re being so drained. Tell me time is going to be a big, big milestone that we need. We need to look at with, um, helping to foster integration of the moral reflex tummy time. And then at about three months of age or so when they roll onto their side and they kind of kind of come together to midline, moral reflex is a core, it’s a core base centering reflex. Um, those of you that if you work on any energy or shock residents, a lot at solar Alexis area. Okay. So let’s go into some ways that we can evaluate the integrity of the Mar reflex. So let’s remember, I always say when I’m teaching, the more a reflex mimics an infantile response, that’s the it, the more active it is in that individual.
So in the, in the infant, we know that, um, they are going to inhale and everything extends. And then the exhale, like a, like a sigh of relief, the exhale, and come in into a flex position. So the Mo when you’re doing these testing patterns is T evaluations. You look for how much do they mimic that infant towel reflux? Okay. So it’s a good idea to get your hands on some little fiddle, farts, some newborns, and test that Mar reflex, you’re holding them. And basically you can drop them and you should see that inhale and then exhale. And they settle and come to come to inflection. The Murray flex was, has, um, been much associate with the vestibular system because of that change. It had movement. However, they’ve done some studies where they, um, basic what has basically shown that it’s very much associated with vestibular and proprioception, especially of the upper cervical spine.
Okay. So it’s an extension based stimulation that we’re looking for, that if it’s still active, we’re going to talk. We’re going to look at a few different ways to, uh, to look at this. One of them is actually in a supine position. You might not get these little fiddle farts that are, um, that have such an active Morrow to want to do the trust, fall maneuver, where they’re standing with feet together. I think I put a little video in here or a picture of that. Um, but that while they’re standing be preferably feet together, good posture. Cause we want to load up the system, especially at proprioception arms would be flexed elbow, slightly up the side, their head extended, and you ask them to fall back and you look, if they can, they do it with ease, do they hesitate? Um, do they, do they do this?
And then come back in. So the more amendments that mimics that infantile response, the more active it is in that individual that you’re evaluate. But I want you also to look at things like, do they flush? Do they have a sympathetic response? Do they get red? Do they get sweaty? Sometimes what I’ll do? Let’s say I’m doing the trust fall on a eight or 10 year old or an adult. Um, just make sure you can. You’re strong enough to match their body size. If you’re going to do the trust fall one. Okay. You can handle them if they, that dead weight comes back at you. Um, but my little fiddle parts I might say did that. And they, I see no action of their arms, no reaction. They just fall straight back. Okay. I will touch their PA. I’ll say, let me feel your hands. I want to feel that, are they breaking out into a sweat? Am I, am I picking up any sympathetic response? And I’ll also ask them, did that, um, how did that make you feel? Did that give you butterflies in your belly?
And some of them say, no, that was fun. Some might say you little, you know, and I’ll say little butterflies, medium, or a lotta meaning. Did that feel? Give them a feeling of being anxious. Okay. So you want to dig a little bit, um, you want to look for the overt signs, but you also want to did, like, is it maybe hanging out a little bit? Another thing you can do is you can walk into a room and you can either come from behind. If, if you feel it’s appropriate, if you know this person or, you know, they’re old enough, you think they can handle it, et cetera. And you can see if you can start a limb boot, um, or you can see, um, when you, some people say is, um, when you run up to somebody and meet them face to face, and if they’re equally to embrace you or they’re like freaking out, okay.
So those are some, some other subtle signs you might look for that is this moral hanging out a little bit, the older person or adult you might ask, how do you do somebody scares you? Or if you are, um, walking in front of the cards and we slammed slams or horn, do you like startle? And it’s hard for you to settle afterwards when Morrow integrates, it’s taken over by what this, what we call the stress reflex, where if I’m sitting here at a cafe, having a nice glass of wine with somebody in relaxing and conversing, and all of a sudden, I hear a loud crash behind me. I should appropriately take a breath in my shoulders. Go up. I turn, I look, I’m available, able to evaluate that I am safe. I’m okay. And I can come back and I can pretty quickly relax and calm down again with the adult, with the oldest child, do they startled?
And they have a hard time coming down and, and, um, self-regulating afterward. So those are some other things we want to look at if looking for an active Mark. So another way to test, we can do that the trust fall, but you can also have the person, the little fiddle part’s supine have, you know, a rolled up. You’re going to see on here, the rule that pillow under her shoulders. So you want the head about four or five inches off the table or the floor, depending where you’re at, put your hands underneath them. Their arms should be out to the side elbow, slightly bent with palms down legs extended and be fairly relaxed. And what you tell them is first of all, do it with the eyes open. Um, when I, as soon as I dropped your head, as soon as I let your head fall, I want you to cross your arms across your chest. First of all, make sure they can do this. Make sure they can, they know, understand the directions and they know how to do this. They can use both arms in a coordinated fashion
To do this. So
You simply hold their head. And at a given point, just drop it down and you see how fast they can react. Do they initially splay out like tomorrow and then come to midline appropriately? Do they hold their breath? Do they grimace? Do they flush? Are they sweaty? How active does that? Their motor pad, their response mimic an active model reflux. So this is another way we can do it. And then there’s also what we call the duck and pigeon walk. So what I’ll do is if I am not sure, or I see a very slight then thinking that’s kind of the slight active model, but I’m not sure I’ll put them in a duck and pigeon walk. And oftentimes you’ll pick it up here. And what that is is you have them stand. You have their elbows bent at a 90, 90 degree. As you see here, her thumbs are pointing inward and then her feet are pointing
Out
And you have them walk about 10 feet forward and 10 feet back up several times. And you see if they can keep that posture. The thing you’ll know is that they’re there, their thumbs or hands want to come out of that position. And, um, and then the pigeon walk, his feet are turned in toe to toe and thumbs are turned out and can again, can they keep that posture as they walk forward and backward? And so this sometimes will bring out that, um, that moral, that you’re not sure if it’s linear in there or not. So I do this on my older kiddos and my adults, if I’m not seeing, if I’m, if I do the trust fall, um, and or the supine, and nothing’s really sh I’m not sure. I’ll see if I can bring it out this way. So those are three ways we can evaluate the moral along with the things that we talked about, of, of, uh, history, questions, and presentation that might be indicating, um, an active Morrow.
And then look again at your history. Are they complaining of anxiety? Are they complaining of inattention, um, sleep issues, blood sugar dysregulation, look at those as well. So tie those into the picture. So how are some ways? So this is a pretty, um, standard exercise to help integrate Morrow. But again, we want to bring this across all ages and all stages. Not everybody can do this, right? So I’m going to hold your breath. Don’t hold your breath because it’s part of Morrow. Um, I’m going to show you some ways we can modify things to help those, those individuals, depending on their age and their functional integrity, how we can modify this. So I have this little one in, in a chair. You can do this either supine, or you can do it in a chair depending on their capability. And we, I call this the Venus fly trap.
It’s like that plant, right? That you drop something into and it eats it up. So I call it the Venus fly trap. I think some people call it the star flower. Okay. So you’re gonna see it called different things, but this little one’s in a chair everything’s extended. Okay. Palms facing outward. And then the first thing is they cross one leg. They cross the same arm on that side, and then they roll up. Now what I tell, because you also want that head to come into flexing and what their whole body to come in into flection. Okay. So what I tell them, as I tell them, um, cause you want the pump when they’re doing this, you want the Palm space in their face. So I tell them that pretend your hands are like butterflies. And that they’re always facing the butterflies are, are, are facing you.
Okay? And they’re flying right here because I want those palms open. And as a side note, sometimes you’ll see individuals that have an active, retained Morrow. They they’re fisted they’re there. They don’t relax their fists open. So palms open facing you. All right. Um, and then as they they’re going to cross and they’re going to roll and they’re going to kind of take the butterfly wing to their nose and then the unroll uncross. Okay. Um, and the reason I liked that I like having their eyes on their hands as well, because you’re now you’re getting some hand eye coordination built into this. Um, so it’s, it’s kind of killing multiple birds with multiple stones. So you have them do one side first and then unroll and uncross. And then the other side crosses over and they roll up. Now again, I start them out with these basic movements because that’s all they may be able to do.
And then I can add breathing with it. So as they extend the inhale as a flex, the exhale, and it’s great to do like a five count breath with that. So as a extend five count, inhale as a flex five-pack five count by point. Exhale. Okay. How many do you do on each side? It depends on the, on the person. Do they cook out? Do they get kooky brain after three? You don’t want to push the goat. So to speak on these because you don’t want to drive them into a sympathetic state where they don’t like doing these, especially with their kiddos, their excuse will be, Oh, this is dumb. This is stupid. This is too easy. When actually it’s really hard on our brain. So, um, you might be able to get three on each side for the first week and then they can do five and then they can do 10. You need to step them up as tolerable. Okay. Because who wants to feel cookie? Now I want to show you over. This will play okay. On the child that can’t do this. How can we start laying the foundation to help them do this?
Can you do this? Maybe your right leg comes over to your left. Okay. And then do you remember your right hand? CO’s over on top, but your left. Okay. And can you roll up into a ball or you can do a roll, everything up and the head comes up too. There we go. Awesome. Okay. Unroll and unfold unfold. And now the left side comes on. Talk. Is it like paper? Kind of, can you put the website on the top? The left hand on top. Okay. Remember it’s like, butterflies are looking at you. It’s like your hands are butterflies because you want always the palms to be facing the face. Okay. Okay. So that gives you just again, how do we modify these things? Right? How do we make it applicable? The other thing I call it’s called clamps again, Morrow is a centering. It’s a core reflex.
So I use, um, hold on. If you’re out there. Okay. I’m going to show you actually with little babies to how to do this. Okay. We’re going to modify it for the little, little, little, little ones. Okay. But clams are, um, I use either, you’re going to see two different versions here. You’re going to see me using a deflated plated physio ball. And you’re going to see me using a beanbag chair B back because we want to mimic, we want to get an action that they can carry out that gets them into that center. All right. So this is kind of fun. The boys, especially like it. Um, so I’m going to show you. Okay. Ready, buddy. Okay. Everything comes up and squeezes it. Here we go.
Beautiful. Beautiful. Ready to go again? I think I have it ready. Okay. So you want their arms and their legs to kind of come up, see how the end phases here has legs. There’s those bits spread apart. You want them that kind of squeezing that whole, the upper and lower extremities. And then you’ll see this guy. Awesome job three, because especially this, the second one that I showed you, that little guy would, can not figure out right. Left more reflex. It’s going to be, uh, uh, uh, right left body, right. Left brain, upper lower body, upper lower brain brainstem to frontal lobe. Okay. So they can’t figure a lot of this. These kids can’t figure this stuff out, so we’re helping them and we’re playing a game at the same time and they love it. Um, so how do we modify this with the baby? Okay.
Okay. So with the infant, with a positive Mara, we can do the same type of things that we did with the older child. We’ll just modify it. So we saw that video clip where we had the little toddler and we had mom had him sitting in at her lap and we put the ball and we call it the clam. So what we can do with the little ones is get the small step in and we’ll okay. We have our quality
And we just use that boom. And we just modify ends up squeeze. Okay. And then maybe get her attention and then, and roll up and squeeze. Okay. So we’ll do that three to five times, and then we can do a model
Venus flytrap as well, where just like you saw in the video with the older child where we’ll just
Do the, um, maneuvers for them
And then roll them up and roll and I’m cross. And you can have the parents do at home again, three to five times on each side with the little ones it’s really easy to do for just one person, because they are so small, so modifications depending on functional capacity, age and size. So there’s some tips for the Morrow, with the iPad.
Jeez, gotta love that hair in that video. Hi, wild hair day there. Um, now what I want to say is, um, you saw me do the clams with that older child. The other way I’ve had them like, like a three-year-old where I’ve had them, where sit in mom’s lap and they’re facing out. And we just use a big step down, a big Teddy bear when they’re step animals or a big physio ball or whatever. Okay. And you just kinda put it into their core. And mom, um, mom would help them maybe squeeze with the arms and dad or me depending where they’re at would help him curl up with their legs. So they’re the comfort of mom’s lap. The object is coming out to their core and they help them squeeze. And what I found, especially with my autistic kiddos is they end up really liking this.
And sometimes they’ll end up dragging that step down and what’s mom or dad, or the physio ball. And, and they want this done because with some of them, it’s very calming actually. Um, I’ll give you one more thing. The other thing you can do with the older individual is you can have them in this position. So again, they, the unused arm is out the side, Palm up, you have the arm and the leg at a 90 90 position. You want them in a 90, 90 position. And you’re simply again, in, in the picture here on the left, I’m pushing into their core and they need to resist me. You’re not using more than 20, 25% of your body strength. Okay? You don’t want them overpowering you. And a lot of the kiddos will try to overpower you because it’s harder for them to do more of an isometric push.
So you’re pushing, you’re, you’re re having them resist as you’re pushing in. And then on the other picture, you see I’m Abby, I’m pushing out a wave from their core, and they’re supposed to try to maintain that position. So not easy to do. Um, and so what I do is I’ve done some cheat sheets for y’all. I, what they like to do is like this little dude, how he likes to rest his he’s resting his hand on his head. They like to cheat. Okay. When we’re in the sympathetic dominant shift, it really shuts up our prefrontal cortex and motor control and motor strength is off. So I I’ve used these little plates where they have to try to entice them to keep that position. I’ll show you this real quick. Right.
Keep that one bent. So we bounce a little bit like this there and bounce that place. Okay. That goes, this goes
Up. Okay. Bounce that plate. Okay. Right. Push in. Where do you push outward? So don’t let those plates drop. Oh, you’ve got to keep up. Awesome. Okay. So that gives the older kiddo a challenge. I’ve also used slink from, for the little kids slink from toy story. It was a perfect stuffed animal to, to rest on their leg. And then I said, don’t let slink flaw fall. Okay. So these are just ways again, to have some fun modify things, to get where you want to get with the little kiddos. And so again, you start with the easy stages and work your way up to harder, do harder maneuvers. So I think we had a pretty good fun time for you enjoyed this. Um, please reach out to me if you have any questions, this is going to be a big one right now because people are in, um, again, second a spider flight mode.
And, um, we want to help to be able to, uh, pull out all the red stops in addition to adjusting them, getting lifestyle management, diet regulation, blood sugar regulation. Um, look at that more reflects in a little bit can go a long way. So again, thank you again, ChiroSecure. You’ve been amazing for the chiropractic profession. Um, what would we do without you? Thank you for letting me share this information and be sure to check in on the first Tuesday in February with the amazing Erik Kowalke and his amazing information. And I’ll be back the third Thursday of February until then keep changing lives, keep changing the future.
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