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Dr. Erik, again, coming to you, it’s October, uh, the look to the Children’s show, just a huge things and shout out to you ChiroSecure and Dr. Stu Hoffman for all that he does for the chiropractic profession. Uh, my name is Dr. Erik Kowalke and I run a practice in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I thought I would show you the office a little bit today, uh, as well, uh, do something new. So the show will go as long as I can, uh, hold my arms up and hold this thing steady enough for you to see it. I don’t have any fancy equipment here today. Um, I also run a software company scanned, which many of you use or know of that helps us just see a ton of families and make their experience awesome in the office, uh, make it convenient for them to make chiropractic care part of their normal daily life.
Uh, we’ve been open for 10 years now and, uh, we still see the same, the first family that ever signed on to care in our office 10 years ago. Uh, we see 1500 people a week and 500 of those are kids. Uh, and so we have a lot of fun in this place and I love just sharing stuff that we’re learning in our clinic and that we focus on to create an extraordinary experience for moms and parents and, uh, infants and dads and, uh, the whole spectrum so that you guys can take stuff back to your practice and implement right away. So this show is 15, 20 minutes long, the first Thursday of every month. Uh, and don’t miss Dr. Monika Buerger. She also does a Look to the Children’s show the third Thursday of every month, uh, right here on this channel. So don’t miss that.
There she is right there. Point two right there. So this is our office. I thought it’d be fun to show you guys. I talk about themes a lot and how we make it fun in the office for themes. So, uh, this theme is, uh, thoughts, traumas, and toxins. Oh my, we have the yellow brick road. And let me show you this one on this wall. There’s our chalkboard that we decorate every theme that we do. So this one’s going to go throughout the month and we have the yellow brick road behind me going into, this is our NPO PDR, new patient orientation room. So these barn doors close, and we do all of our new patient orientations in here. And then we have all kinds of fun stuff going on in the office and you could see way down there. We’re doing a raffle for a solo stove today. Uh, I’ll go this way too. And you can see some of our adjusting rooms and see how that works out. If I can not trip on something. So there’s the wizard of Oz crew.
This is tricky. See if I can do this without crashing into something. Uh, here’s one of our adjusting rooms. So we have eight rooms, two tables in each room, just set up like that. That’s our station, pregnancy pillows and all of that stuff in here. So this is where all of our day-to-day education happens, uh, when we’re adjusting kids and families and all of that stuff. So the main thing I want to talk about today is the three main questions that we pose to new moms and infants come into the practice, uh, specifically that gives us the information to know, you know, where are we going with? This is this straight wellness care, is this corrective care supportive care right off? Um, and when, and give us an idea of what what’s happening with this child. So a couple obvious ones obviously was how was the birth process, you know, was it, um, was it stressful to the mom?
So not just trauma, am I thinking physical trauma, uh, around, you know, was it a C-section or was it a forceps delivery or something like that? That’s important as well, but also how was it overall for the mom emotionally? How long did it last, uh, how stressful was it? So we talked a lot about stress. So is there’s physical stress and emotional stress, chemical stress, as you all are aware. So what kind of stresses were induced into the baby or transferred into the baby through the birth process? Um, even in the pregnancy, uh, itself along the way. So one thing that sometimes happens is mom will have a lot of pain or discomfort later on in pregnancy. And she’ll feel like your baby’s always stuck to one side and you get a baby that, you know, might develop with torticollis, or doesn’t like to look to the left or something.
Well, I’m already are trying to think clinically, is this something that was induced or cause from the birth process itself, or is this something that maybe started, um, in inter utero, like early on and maybe there was intra uterine constraint and the baby was not able to move like a one or two and its head was, you know, maybe it developed with his head pinned up against the pelvis for a certain period of time or something. Um, that’s important information to notice like, okay, do I think this babies, you know, how long is it gonna take to see results on this? Um, so you communicate effectively cause you never want to over promise and under deliver and all that information Lino kind of lets you know, how long has this problem been there? You know, baby, might’ve just been born, you know, last week I adjusted a 10 hour old baby might’ve been born 10 hours ago, but the problem might’ve already been there for a couple of months prior to the baby, even actually entering this world.
And that is information that, um, is important to know. Uh, the second one I’m always asking is how is the baby nursing? And so the mindset here is, uh, if they’re nursing well, is there a, if they’re not nursing well, is it a pallet issue to the nurse? Good on one side or not? So the mom might say, um, they’re nursing. Okay. But they prefer the right side. And so the scenario around this is moms often think there’s something wrong with one side or um, you know, the baby doesn’t like the nurse on the left and there’s something wrong with them. Uh, and what can happen is the baby’s upper cervical spine is so subluxated. They don’t like turning their head one direction. So they only like to nurse on one side because it just hurts to turn their head the other way. And so not only is that important clinically to, for you to help, you know, adjust that baby and, and um, you know, remove the subluxations on the infant, but for the mom to know it’s not them, you know, uh, in some scenarios that maybe it’s not them and that, that can just cause extra stress on them in their life and everything else that’s going on with them.
So that’s also important. Um, the third one is, uh, if they’re pooping, okay. You know, we have six kids. And so the main things that I’m concerned about the first day, 24 hours to 48 hours of life is are they nursing? Are they pooping? Uh, and are they sleeping? Okay. And how does their overall tone of their body feel? Uh, that lets me know like, okay, if they’re pooping and they’re peeing and they’re nursing, uh, and they feel relaxed, we’re good to go. Like we’re pretty much 99% out of the woods for any crazy scenario going on. So if they’re not pooping or they haven’t pooped all the meconium out, you know, then, then I’m like, Hmm, is there something going on, sacrum, lumbar spine Anish. Um, is there just a lot of stress in this baby in general? Uh, you know, I’m ruling out any other red flags because at this point, you know, we have families that they might not even see a pediatrician, you know, they may have a home birth and I’m like the first person in their scene and I want to make sure there’s like, everything’s good to go.
You know, like, is there any red flags or anything that I’m like, Hmm, I really want to see this baby tomorrow morning or, you know, you should go see your pediatrician or like what’s happening there. Um, anything you really want to watch out for, or I can advise the parent on, Hey, really pay attention to this. You know, like make sure you’re doing skin on skin to help the milk come in so that the baby can, uh, get the nutrients it needs so that it can start going to the bathroom properly. And we can rule that out. So, uh, you really gotta take these ones serious because you, you you’re, you’re the person that they count on. And as you’re in practice for longer and longer and longer, you have families that they’ll only come to you. Um, and they only come to you with their babies.
And so you need to know a lot of different scenarios, um, checking their hips and you know, all of this stuff, uh, is just gives you information. You need to give the best clinical care and ultimately communicate really well to the mom. Because at this point, uh, mama’s in a state where, you know, a lot just happened emotionally and all their hormones are going back. So I find it really important to, to over communicate just, Hey, this is what I’m seeing. This is what I’m finding. This is what’s really good. You know, it can be easy for a clinician like we are just to just, we’re looking for what’s wrong. You know, what do I find this wrong? Is there, is there a cranial problem? Is there an Atlas of a surgical problem? Is there a sacred problem? Um, it, you know, is there’s just way too much stress in the baby.
Did something happen through the birthing process that could have caused them harm? Like this necessarily isn’t the time to over-communicate well, yeah, C-sections are horrible. And you know, all this stuff is horrible because they don’t, it doesn’t go through the vaginal canal. They don’t have the bacteria they need in their gut. So you’re going to have to start doing this and this and this. Uh, you just gotta be really careful and sensitive to the fact that the mom can put all of that on her, right at this point. And, and, you know, she can think that it’s all her fault that she had to go through this. It’s her fault that her body wasn’t able to do whatever the scenario is. It’s her fault that she wasn’t able to deliver a totally naturally. And that’s the last thing you want. So the last thing you want to just cause more stress than the mom, cause that’s gonna make it harder for her to nurse.
It’s gonna make it harder for her to relax or her milk to come in, which in turn is going to affect the baby. Even more than the baby’s going to lose more weight, which is going to stress her out even more. And just this vicious cycle of like, you know, negativity. So you want to be as positive as you can, uh, around all the stuff that you see as good. So I’m really intentional about making sure I’m telling the mom, you know, if the cranial, if the cranium feels awesome and uh, all the suture Heights are really good and all of that is really good and the tonicity is really good. And you know, you can, you can, uh, check the hips and I mean, everything you notice, that’s like, oh, this is great. This is great. Baby looks great. Skin tone looks great. You can tell just by the color of their skin, uh, you know, what the Billy Reuben levels are, you know, I’ve had two kids with severe, um, jaundice.
So I’m pretty good at knowing like skin color and tone and it ends in their eyes in their face. Uh, so if you see orange in the face, but you don’t see it in the feet or the hands, then it’s like, okay, but if you see it in the feet, the hands and the chest, and it’s like, you know, oh, it’s a little bit more severe. Um, all of those little things allow you to communicate effectively to the parent on what to look for, what to watch out for, what is totally not a big deal. What’s really great. How many dirty diapers, how much are their P how much are they paying? Like, um, it’s normal that the baby loses weight in the first 24 to 48 hours, 36 hours. Um, what is normal? Don’t freak out about this. Uh, this is abnormal. You should, you should definitely know this.
So a lot of that goes into that first visit with that infant is over communicating, you know, allowing a safe place where they can ask questions, but really relieving the stress on mom. So she doesn’t feel like she’s at fault for any of the things that happen that point really we’re looking at like, okay, if you can’t change it, if it’s, if it happened up to that point, let’s just move forward. What do we do from this point forward? You know, what do we need to be looking for? How often can they be coming in? And this is where you need to be very confident and clear on your recommendations. So this isn’t like, you know, for you using the new big care plans, this isn’t a time where you’re like, okay, we need to see you three times a week for this twice a week for this once a week for this, for the next 12 months.
Well, this is for me, very, um, very immediate, like, okay, what does next week look like? You know, this mom just had a baby, maybe it’s, uh, uh, you know, a third kid, fourth kid, fifth kid, their whole life is going to change in the next two weeks. Totally different from their whole life previously. Let’s just talk short term, like, you know, when do you need to see the baby the next week? And if you can get them to agree to that, then they can wrap their head around that and be like, okay, I can do this. I can do this. And then why do you need to see them next week? What did you find today? Uh, what did you see? What are you going to check next? Then they come in, what are you hoping you see next time you come in, what should they be looking for or doing between now and your next visit?
Um, you know, as infants get bigger and you’re doing tummy time and you want to avoid so much time on the back of their head, um, that kind of stuff is super important. Uh, why do you see subluxations in the sacrum? A lot could be car seat, um, you know, sitting in car seats too much or swings too much. And so each time you see them, you also get a chance to educate them on the next phase of development of their infant too. So, um, I guess the big thing there is keep your recommendations short, keep them very, to the point, um, in the beginning and keep them very specific and, uh, over overeducate and communicate why the why behind, why you’re suggesting this and that. Um, the last thing I wanted to mention on this, uh, which is super important after you ask those questions, let’s see you get to the point of adjusting.
Very, very, very, very important to show the mom what it feels like to be adjusted. However, you’re going to adjust them. I was just seeing a post the other day of a scenario where a chiropractor adjusted an infant with an activator and left a bruise on the child and the parents, you know, freaked out. And wasn’t a good scenario and didn’t want to pursue care further because of that. Um, you can avoid a lot of that stuff if you’re, if you’re just proactive on showing the parents, like, if, if you’re going to use an instrument, what does it feel like, do it right on their forearm. If, if you’re not going to use the instrument, what does that feel like to have right on their forearm. So they know exactly what to expect, because it’s not uncommon that the baby starts crying when you’re adjusting them.
Uh, and you don’t want them to think that it’s you making the baby cry. Um, sometimes just your hands are cold or like there’s so many scenarios around that. Um, so that’s really important to show showing the parent. And then if you have lots of kids, you know, when kids, you know, you take a, uh, a newborn baby and you lay them on like a cold surface or something, and they’re light, they’re looking up and their faces in lights, like it’s an uncomfortable, unnatural place to be. So sometimes you got to adjust the baby with mom holding him, or I hold the baby over my shoulder. Um, you gotta be flexible and adaptive to just adapt how you adjust infants and babies and scenarios like that. T so, uh, hopefully you got something out of that. Uh, um, and hopefully you got something out of our themes in our office.
This, this month we’re super excited to do. Was it a vase and this whole theme for October moving into November, we’re doing, um, thankfulness. So we have trees up on those big barn, doors and leaves at the parents can write and, uh, people can write on what they’re thankful for, um, about chiropractic and how it’s changed their life. And then the whole, uh, our doors are filled with leaves with all these people’s testimonials. And it’s amazing to super funds up. Maybe I’ll show you guys that I’ll get, I’ll get some machine I can hold my phone with. So I’m not moving all over the place. And I can show you guys that for November. So I have a fantastic October, thanks to ChiroSecure Dr. Stu Hoffman for hosting, look to the children every month. And I look forward to seeing you guys at the start of November
Today’s pediatric show to their children was brought to you by ChiroSecure.