Rewilding the Mouth: Wellbeing starts with human physiology
This is seemingly a sharp turn from the gender discussion I’ve been writing about lately.
But it’s actually not.
My mission with what I research and write about is core human, physiology-based wellbeing. In order to achieve that, we have to investigate all areas of life.
This is why I’m not a “niche” thinker or interested in being a hyper specialist. Yes, I understand business and marketing strategies (more than many as I’ve spent my entire adulthood as a business owner and the past several years mentoring women in their businesses). Yes, I get that the specialists and “experts” get all the TED Talks, podcast interviews, and special attention.
I don’t really give a damn about any of that.
I’m here because I care about human beings. I care about our wellbeing. I want us to experience life feeling GOOD the majority of the time. This is our birthright.
We live in a culture that is founded on the premises of non-biologically-appropriate social structures and non-physiological perspectives, and these two parts make up the underlying dysfunctional biases that weave through all the things we believe.
As a society built on the promises of “civilization” we’ve obscured our wildness and we’re super out of touch with our biology. We have NOT lost our instincts (despite what many doctors and scientists want to claim). But we have covered them up with culture and social lenses.
I’m here researching and writing this so we can pull off the culture to see what’s underneath. What you do with those pieces is up to you. Some culture can be healthy, as we are cultural beings. But the beautiful aspect of culture is that it can be a choice (more so than we are led to believe). We just have to see it for what it is: environmental and not biological.
So, let’s dive into my current deep research topic: the mouth.
Researching & Contemplating the Mouth is Weird…right?
Not really, no. And let me explain why. I have very little interest in philosophy that doesn’t connect to an action or function. And one could easily argue that the wellbeing of the body starts in the mouth…
A week ago, I spent part of a Saturday with the coolest dentist and her diverse team. This team included an oralfacial myofunctional therapist, two lactation consultants (one of which is also an occupational therapist), and two cranial sacral therapists. I also learned later that the dentist is also an IBCLC, which is extra awesome.
This powerhouse team works together once a month to help newborns, infants, toddlers, children, teenagers, and adults with their mouth function – specifically to release tongue ties and set up jaw expanders. (To be clear, the dentist has a very full practice in Las Vegas and she takes one weekend each month to drive up north to bring her amazing work to southern Utah for a day.)
I was invited to come observe after a major geek out session with the myofunctional therapist (who is working with both myself and my 20-year-old daughter to help us with our dysfunctional mouths). They also invited a long-time doctor of osteopathy to observe and she brought her resident DO student who is shadowing for school.
I watched them release 3 babies’ oral ties. They started with a long session of cranial sacral therapy on the baby to relax facia, followed by a super quick laser release to remove the ties (tongue, cheek, and lip ties), then straight to the OT and IBCLC to help mom immediately breastfeed, get aftercare instructions, and calm both mama and baby down.
In between sessions, the super friendly dentist geeked out with the medical student and I about the origin of tongue ties, proper mouth function, how current dentistry is completely missing the boat on mouth function, and so much more.
I walked away from the hours I spent with them completely nerding out and with so many answers to insert into the rewilding mind map I’ve been building in my head for many, many years.
But my journey with the mouth doesn’t begin there… I’ve had a lot of experiences with teeth and mouth function. I’ll summarize quickly to mark my path.
I fell on my face while ice skating as an 8-year-old, with a brand new set of adult front teeth…smashing them in half and forevermore requiring veneers to cover up the two broken teeth.
I have two (much older) half brothers who are orthodontists and spent my visits with them as a child having my teeth looked at and talked about (funny enough, I never did get braces because my teeth were always straight enough).
I started out adulthood as a raw vegan, and both of my pregnancies were mostly raw and vegan… My daughter’s first foods were smoothies and avocados - and she promptly got “bottle mouth” (AKA early childhood caries) as an 18-month-old, despite breastfeeding for 3.5 years and not eating any sugar or processed foods until she was a couple years old.
Her mouth issues led me to start to question both the raw and vegan movements (I was also raised mostly raw and vegan, FYI) - which led me to Weston Price, and subsequent deep diving into why on earth my otherwise healthy kid had rotting teeth as a baby.
(BTW, a dentist told me when she was a toddler that her teeth were rotting because I was breastfeeding her at night, which made me roll my eyes because that makes ZERO evolutionary sense - I knew then that dentists really have no clue about physiological mouth function or evolutionary relationships between mothers and babies.)
When she was 8 years old, a dentist told me that her top jaw wasn’t growing correctly and that I needed to take her to an orthodontist immediately – so we put her in braces for 18 months to help correct her underbite (it redirected her teeth, but didn’t fix her jaw issue - and she has to wear a retainer every night to maintain the “results” - something that thankfully will stop once she’s been doing myofunctional therapy for long enough).
I had my wisdom teeth pulled at 21 years old, after which I developed painful TMJ issues that have continued until the present day (17 years and counting) - the only thing offered by dentists so far has been surgery (which is a hard no from me).
Shortly after the TMJ issues appeared, I got a pinched nerve in my shoulder from falling asleep with my arm over my head while breastfeeding my son at night - this has also lasted in a chronic form for the past 17 years (and the tension has spread down my arms into chronic pain in my wrists and hands).
A couple of years ago, I started noticing that I was drooling while sleeping, which was a new thing I’d never noticed before - I’d always had trouble sleeping, but I could tell my physiological mouth function while sleeping was worsening.
A friend insisted that I read the book Breath by James Nestor, and suddenly I realized that my mouth was the source of much of my sleep issues and chronic pain struggles – I started looking at my daughter, and realized she needed help ASAP too. We both started taping our mouths at night to help keep our mouths closed and to ensure that we were exclusively nasal breathing during the night - and immediately my sleeping issues improved (along with having a robust snack before bed to help the body extend the stored glucose in the liver all night).
There are many varied experiences in between all of these points. And many books read, things tried, and connection points made (and plenty of frustratingly not-useful professionals consulted).
But it wasn’t until I started to understand the PHYSIOLOGY of the mouth that things clicked into place. Nutrition is always important, but it’s not enough. Structure and function matter just as much, if not more.
The Mouth is the Beginning
I think it’s important to go all the way back to the primordial soup. As creatures evolved, the mouth became one of the most distinguishing parts of animals that differentiated them from plants, trees, fungi, and algae.
The mouth is a significant part of what began to make us animals.
Animals each have their own mouth physiology, and birds, lizards, and other mammals do things differently in their mouth functions than we do, of course.
As mammals, we are all somewhat similar, but our skeletal structures and muscle functions are different. So, therefore, our mouths are also different (it’s all quite brilliant). Additionally, humans talk, which makes our mouths and airways extra tricky.
Our modern, homo sapien mouth spent millions of years becoming a self-sufficient mechanism with many purposes. We’re able to eat, drink, talk, and sing with our mouths. And, if we’re sick or have some sort of blockage (or we’re running at full speed away from a lion), our mouths act as a fail-safe for another way to get air or to get massive amounts of oxygen for explosive adrenaline-fueled movement.
Our tongue is meant to be pressed up against the roof of our mouths, suctioned there 24/7 (when we aren’t eating, drinking, or talking - and even then, our tongues should be hovering at the top of our mouths).
Having our tongues at the top of our mouths serves several functions: our tongues tell our top palettes how to grow (bones grow in reaction to pressure), they pull down on the palette so it won’t grow high up into the sinus cavity, they get out of the way and out of our throat/airway so we can optimally breathe through our noses, and they also serve a self-soothing function (they trigger the vagus nerve, causing us to switch into parasympathetic NS mode, helping us to head into “rest and digest” mode).
In utero, our tongues are completely tied down to the bottom of our mouths through embryonic tissue that acts as scaffolding while our bodies are being built. Over the months, that scaffolding tissue dissolves, unleashing our tongues so they can be the amazing supports that they are for our eating and talking.
While humans have probably always had occasional babies who were born with a tongue tie (essentially some of the embryonic tissue didn’t entirely dissolve before birth), the rates were NOTHING like they are today.
Why are tongue ties a problem? They restrict the tongue, holding it down so that it’s a challenge to suction the tongue to the top of the mouth. It can also restrict proper chewing and swallowing, talking, breastfeeding, and so much more.
The main concern I see, however, is that the tenseness from the tongue tie pulls on the fascia of the face, causing facial and then cranial chronic tenseness. This leads to neck tension, odd positions of the head to handle restricted airways and tension, leading to poor posture and greater tension all the way down the body.
(To be ultra clear, a tongue tie is not the only cause of dysfunctional mouth behaviors - most of us do these things, even if we don’t have tongue ties due to…dun, dun, dun...a culture that doesn't live by or understand physiology.)
As the back of the mouth is innervated by the vagus nerve, this travels down and down and down…all the way to the female cervix. If we are tense in our mouth, we are also likely tense down the entirety of our torsos. The way we hold our neck affects the way we hold our pelvis, which affects how we walk and so much more. Everything is connected.
The vagus nerve innervates all our vital organs, aside from our adrenals. In Polyvagal Theory, this is how our emotions and organs are all connected to each other. We have “gut feelings” and a “knot in our throat” and so on and so forth because of this nerve. This is the nerve that is the basis of our autonomic nervous system, which controls our senses of fight, flight, freeze, and what we call “rest and digest”.
It’s how we feel anxiety and also how we feel safe.
The fact that our tongue suctions to the roof of our mouths isn’t just a nice thing for our jaw development. It’s directly connected to our ability to self-soothe, relax, and feel in control of our emotions. For those of us who have spent a life NOT suctioning our tongues, we might clench our jaws, grind our teeth, or do other weird things with our teeth and tongues.
Humans are always searching for grounding, and we’ll take whatever we can get, even if it hurts and is ineffective.
Tongue Ties and Other Malfunctions
I’ve asked several professionals and read studies and books written by experts to figure out why on earth there are so many tongue-ties in western society. In my midwifery training, we check newborns for tongue and lip ties and I rarely see a baby that doesn’t have one in some form.
The general consensus seems to be that this issue escalated roughly 70 years ago when synthetic vitamins were added to our foods (flour and cereal especially) at the end of World War II. This is roughly the time that we’ve seen an escalation of other issues too: significant increases in ADHD and autism (and other behavioral issues), Alzheimer’s, cancer, and on and on. We can’t really say that these things are connected to each other. But we can for sure say that something started then that is driving all of these issues, and in that way, they are connected.
The synthetic vitamins are a significant change in our environment, however, and worth exploring thoroughly. (There are other significant changes in our environment, as well, and it’s most likely that all of these things are working together to create these problems.)
I’m not going to dive into the chemistry of what synthetic vitamins do, as that would take us relatively off course (and chemistry is super boring and annoying to write about). But this mostly has to do with the synthetic form of folate (folic acid) that has been added to almost every single bread product, processed food, cereal, and more in the US (and other countries have similar issues, as well, including Canada).
Many, many of us have an issue processing this synthetic form of folate due to an MTHFR gene mutation. This causes a problem in our cells when they engage in a crucial metabolic process called methylation (a very important process in the body that affects DNA and cell function - I’ve included an example methylation chart above for those who visually want to see how important methylation is to bodily function).
This makes us as adults feel unwell often. For fetuses that also have a genetic basis to struggle with synthetic folate and methylation, this means that their tissue development is altered and they’re left with embryonic tissue at birth that should have dissolved (a process that I’m certain is quite complicated and over the heads of those of us who weren’t chemistry majors).
To be clear, this is not the only plausible explanation for an increase in tongue ties. But it’s the most relevant one that most of us can do something about to try to prevent them in the first place. (I’m always most interested in root cause and prevention when possible.)
Relearning to Mouth Like a Human
As adults who have issues already (and who also likely have children with issues), all hope is not lost. We can regain the function of our mouths. And by doing so, we can prevent or reduce the myriad of chronic health issues (breathing problems, heart problems, digestive issues, mental health issues, speech impairment, etc.) that come with a dysfunctional mouth.
As adults, we can’t change much of our structure, as we have adult bones that have already finished growing (for the most part - some people are reporting some palette expansion even into their 60s with relearning proper mouth function and getting support from properly trained dentists).
Our young children often have radical transformations, however, through myofunctional therapy, mouth tie releases, and orthotropics (jaw growth focused dentistry).
We can grieve what our culture took from us (I’m a mother of adult children who are beyond the window of help for their jaws – there is always cultural grieving inherent in mothering in this society). And then we can do something about physically feeling better and helping our young children to avoid the pain that comes with these dysfunctions, when we can.
Proper mouth function starts with the tongue. Then it is all about breathing —relearning to ONLY nose breathe, 24/7. This will likely require support from professionals called myofunctional therapists, as we are all unique in our bad habits and need customized support to relearn how to use our mouths according to their biological design.
Things that are never, ever within the realm of healthy or normal: snoring, mouth breathing in any form (test this by holding water in your mouth for 3 minutes and observe how comfortable/uncomfortable you are while breathing - many people who think they exclusively nasal breathe are also sometimes mouth breathing without noticing), mouth breathing while sleeping, sleep apnea, sleep disturbances or waking up still tired, small mouths and a narrow palette (our mouths are designed to fit all of our teeth with space in between teeth, including our wisdom teeth), a narrow/long face, restricted airways, constant sinus infections/allergies, TMJ or mouth pain in any form, many kinds of headaches, chronic cavities, and so many other symptoms.
Additionally, mental struggles such as ADHD can be related to improper breathing and mouth dysfunctions. Issues such as Alzheimer’s have also been connected to mouth dysfunction as well – my guess is this is because improper breathing increases bacteria in the mouth and Alzheimer’s has been connected to bacteria in the mouth that eventually crosses the blood-brain barrier, causing a protective reaction in brain tissues that create the typical brain tissue hardening seen in Alzheimer’s.
Based on quick research, I have a suspicion that oral ties and improper mouth function are both strongly correlated to the development of autism, as well (you’ll quickly discover online that it’s a common feature in autistic children to have breathing problems, have improper use of their mouths, have serious sleeping issues, and often have significant tongue ties). I can’t say that this *causes* autism, obviously. That would take real research (and who knows if anyone will ever actually do that research…). But it appears as though they go together, so we can guess that fixing one might drastically improve the other.
By correcting the ways we use our mouths we are simultaneously improving our mental health (don’t forget that beautiful nervous system function) and also improving our physical wellbeing, preventing serious diseases for the future.
Physiological Baby Care
Biologically-oriented thinkers and lifestyle “hackers” like to focus a ton on physiological baby care. That means various things to different people. But generally, it means a gentle, non-pharmacological birth, skin-to-skin immediately after birth, no drugs or interventions in/on baby in the immediate postpartum period, co-sleeping as our ancestors did, baby wearing, exclusive and unrestricted breastfeeding 24/7, baby-led weaning, constant baby holding by a loving adult (yay, nervous system co-regulation), and on and on.
Our society isn’t set up for biologically-appropriate baby care (especially since supporting the new mother isn’t a priority in our culture structures), so this can be tricky and overwhelming for some families to achieve. But the more that babies receive these features of their biological blueprint, the more that their own biological instincts are triggered and their wellbeing increases.
One aspect that is relatively new to the conversation is physiological infant mouth care.
(Though this isn’t even remotely new in the history of humans - traditional cultures everywhere have practices to keep babies’ and children’s mouths closed and to encourage nasal breathing, as well as long-term breastfeeding, resulting in beautiful teeth, straight postures, very few sleeping issues, and other results…)
The refrain of the past decade or so in the mainstream parenting/healthcare circles is that “fed is best” as a retort to the past several decades of “breast is best”. I’m not going to get into the politics of this, as that deserves its own ranty essay.
(Spoiler preview: it has a lot to do with formula companies manipulating the emotions of mothers who are already steeped in societal mother guilt, and the lack of successful breastfeeding has more to do with social support than a mother’s actual physical capacity to breastfeed…)
While most everyone can agree that colostrum and breastmilk are both important components of a baby's first years (customized nutrition for that specific baby, tons of essential microbes, the mother-baby bonding that is biologically-hardwired, nervous system co-regulation, and more)...
Hardly no one is talking about proper mouth development and how breastfeeding contributes to this crucial aspect of human development.
The sucking reflex of the newborn is where we first learn to suction our tongues to the tops of our mouths, which stays with us for the rest of our lives. Breastfeeding requires newborns and babies to suck hard (with a regulated milk supply, of course). Bottlefeeding leads to lazy sucking in most babies, as it’s easier for them to get the milk out without much work (though there are specialists who can help bottlefeeding moms improve their babies’ oral development - it has to be a very intentional practice).
When things go wrong for newborns, it’s typically because of a tongue tie, lip tie, or cheek ties that prohibit the baby from using their tongue correctly (it can also be neurological struggles, which requires teaching the baby how to suck). The most efficient way to deal with this is to get an oral tie release as close to birth as possible (before the baby learns improper mouth habits and has to be re-taught how to use their mouth again).
(One perk of this is that freshly born newborns are still flooded with endorphins from birth, which are natural pain inhibitors — so oral tie releases are far less traumatic than they can be for older babies and children.)
A baby who doesn’t suck correctly often has a hard time feeling at peace (remember the vagus nerve connection to tongue suctioning and also fascial tension throughout the body). They are often whiny, cry a lot, won’t sleep for very long at one time, and are just generally are grumpy little ones. This can contribute to postpartum stress, anxiety, and depression in mothers (and fathers too). And generally, can lead to a very hard and traumatic postpartum experience for everyone.
As the baby grows up, they might develop all kinds of strange bodily habits, they might continue to not sleep well (or might have lots of nightmares or night terrors), they might be tense in their bodies and deal with chronic tension, and they might end up with developmental struggles such as speech delays/impediments, ADHD, learning disorders, and more.
Who knew that the tongue was a key ingredient to experiencing a relaxed childhood and then adulthood!
So while no mother should be shamed for her struggles around baby care and breastfeeding (see all of my posts and writings on how shitty our society is for mothers and their babies — we do the best we can with the lonely, isolated fragments of non-biologically-appropriate societies that we have)... It’s iatrogenic harm and paternalistic to tell a mother that breastfeeding and formula/bottle feeding are synonymous with one another.
One helps to unfold a biological design that leads to a mentally and physically well adult (all other environmental factors also being wellbeing-promoting, of course). The other just simply puts weight on a baby and keeps them alive, without the default biologically-appropriate benefits of breastfeeding. It should only be chosen when all other possibilities have been exhausted. (And professionals and politicians need to seriously get their shit together so that mothers have ACTUAL support with breastfeeding, postpartum care, and more than adequate paid maternity AND paternity/partner leave for the best parenting start possible.)
None of this is to shame or judge a mother for her experiences. But it is to put the blame where it belongs: with a dysfunctional society that doesn’t understand how to set our bodies up socially and physically for ultimate wellbeing, but instead pathologizes, medicalizes, and sets us up for long lives of illness and mental unwellness.
As I’ve said a million times before: when we center the mother-baby in society, we will have a much healthier world.
Jaws are Bones and Grow through Pressure
There’s one other aspect to this whole puzzle. Yes, nutrition (though I’ve already written plenty about nutrition and will share that on this Substack in the near future). But more than that, even.
The bones of our bodies develop due to use and pressure from the environment. Pressure from gravity grows our bones. Hard play and the impact of running, jumping, and other childhood games help our bones to grow.
The same is true about our jaws. Except that we start babies off on mushy foods that don’t make their jaws work in the least. Then we proceed to give them crackers that quickly turn mushy in their mouths, soft cereals, mashed up fruits and veggies, and ground up meats and soft cheeses.
Our jaws are meant for tearing, grinding, and other forceful motions. They evolved during a time period where we didn’t have grinders, blenders, knives, spoons, or other kitchen utensils and appliances. Our jaws are meant to do all the work for us.
Without that pressure from constant chewing, our jaws just aren’t pushed through their full development (as they were just a couple of hundred of years ago in the west and recently were in other parts of the world). This leads to a reduced mouth size, narrow palette, and not enough room for our tongues (leading to other functional issues of the tongue). This leads our upper palettes to grow vertically, crowding out our sinus cavities, reducing our breathing space, restricting our airways, and causing us to do really weird things with our tongues as a result.
Babies, toddlers, and children do not need soft foods. They need to eat like their wild ancestors, tearing and masticating the heck out of all foods. (Obviously, avoid choking hazards and they shouldn’t ever be left alone to eat.)
What to do now?
It can be exhausting to hear about all the things that are “wrong” with our world. I get it. We all have to learn how to pick and choose what we focus on integrating into our lives and what we have the energy, mental, physical, and financial capacity to actually do.
But if you’re dealing with a baby or child who can’t calm down or has serious behavioral and mental health issues. Or if you’ve got chronic pain in your head and neck (and maybe down your back and further). Or you just love taking a preventative approach to wellness…
I’d highly recommend working on your mouth and the mouths of your little ones. That most likely means working with a professional to re-learn how to use your tongue, how to breathe better, and how to eventually sleep with your mouth closed throughout the entire night (and hopefully get WAY better sleep in the process, which is the most crucial element to our overall health and wellbeing — one of the telltale signs of inefficient breathing at night is waking up still feeling exhausted).
By helping your babies and children, you’re giving them the gift of a fully developed jaw that fits ALL of their teeth that naturally has plenty of space, a lack of all the problems that come with mouth breathing, beautiful sleep habits, a well-functioning brain, a happy nervous system, and a deeper awareness of their bodies’ needs. (Plus, far less likelihood of developing chronic pain and illness in adulthood!)
This might include tongue tie release (if a tongue tie is part of the issue causing mouth dysfunction for you and your kiddos). But that shouldn't be the main focus (though it can help among the other processes). More important is the physiological function of the mouth, which takes learning, exercises, awareness, and practice (and possibly even some holistic dental interventions to help with palette size and shape).
And finding a therapist who can help you re-learn (or learn for the first time) is fundamental to starting to relieve your pain, breathe better, reduce sinus infections and allergies, have a clearer mind, sleep better, and feel more calm.
I can’t emphasize the exercises, breathing techniques, and relearning mouth function enough. As the dentist I shadowed the other day said: removing a tongue tie in a child or adult is simply removing a road block. If you don’t do anything with the road itself, then you won’t have any results. And you might just produce scar tissue that behaves like the tongue tie once again.
You MUST find a dentist that actually knows what they’re doing (and what they’re cutting out as most of them don’t go deep enough) – and truly understands the physiological blueprint and function of the mouth. Otherwise, tongue tie releases are just a band-aid treatment with limited results. (I’d recommend connecting with a myofunctional therapist, as they will know the right dentists in your area to talk to.)
This is somewhat untrue for newborns, as they haven’t learned bad habits quite yet and a tongue tie release might be the right choice so that they don’t start to do weird things with their tongues that you’ll have to correct in the future…
If you’re pregnant or plan to become pregnant in the future, I’d recommend avoiding folic acid and synthetic B vitamins as much as you possibly can (whether you have the MTHFR gene mutation or not). Yes, this means avoiding commercial flours of all kinds (become good at reading ingredient labels).
You don’t have to be perfect at it. But being aware and making different choices could save you and your baby lots of pain and money in the future. Be sure to eat loads of folate-rich foods, or at the bare minimum supplement with a methylated form of folate (often called something like methylfolate or similar - look for “methyl” in the name). Read your vitamin labels and be cautious with anything that says it contains “folic acid”- then immediately replace it with real foods (B vitamins are essential to wellbeing).
Synthetic vitamins in mass-produced foods are a social experiment and we’re now suffering the consequences (and we will likely uncover more and more problems from it as the years pass…).
Your baby may still come out with oral ties, and it’s okay. We have ways to help. We’re all doing the best we can, considering the societal circumstances we find ourselves in.
And don’t forget to have fun, rest, relax, and love your mouth for the beautiful adaptive part of you that it is. Our bodies are wise and do whatever needs to be done to keep us alive. Stay thankful and take a deep breath of tension release.
Gratitude is part of the cultural grieving process too. Sending hugs for your difficult path and the lighter path ahead.
And cheers to better sleep, more oxygenation, less pain, more mental wellbeing, and a hell of a lot of REWILDING for our whole lives!
Resources to help you find your way
If you are in the southwest, I HIGHLY recommend Dr. Tara Erson in Las Vegas (she comes up to St. George, Utah once per month for those in Utah). She is absolutely worth the drive to get your tongue tie released correctly (how it’s done matters a LOT).
I also recommend my myofunctional therapist, Darleen Boling. She does support virtually, which means she’s accessible to people, well, anywhere. She’s also the sweetest person on the planet, and great with kids and adults. Highly, highly recommended!
Amazingly, we also have an orthotropic (jaw growth-focused) dentist in southern Utah as well (these specialty-trained dentists are currently hard to find). Give Dr. Bondad a call to get help with your children who are having developmental jaw and facial issues…ASAP (the younger they are, the more likely these interventions can help). My daughter did a consultation with him, and he was thorough and kind, even though she was too old for him to help (he pointed us toward the myofunctional therapist, which was so helpful).
If you are having breastfeeding issues of any kind, GET HELP before you give up. Breastfeeding is a truly crucial ingredient to proper facial development and it’s preventative for future health problems for your child (and you, too).
Talk to your doctor, midwife, doula, a lactation counselor, a La Leche League leader, your friend who was successful at breastfeeding, an IBCLC or CLC… literally anyone who values breastfeeding and wants you to succeed. They may not be able to help you, but they can support you in finding the resources you need. Breastfeeding is instinctual for babies, but it is a learned behavior for mothers. Don’t beat yourself up. You’re supposed to be taught how to breastfeed — that’s human social design. So surround yourself with cheerleaders who love and believe in you, and get the help you need ASAP.
Some organizations who might help (find local professionals through these sites):
Local resources in Utah (search for similar orgs in your area for local help):
Books you NEED to read:
Jaws: The Story of a Hidden Epidemic by Sandra Kahn and Paul R. Ehrlich
The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease by Daniel E. Liberman
Above all, you are your own best resource. Listen to your gut instincts and choose helpers who actually value your health and wellbeing, and aren’t just interested in taking your money. Just because someone uses wellness language in their marketing, doesn’t mean they actually know what they’re doing or value continuing education.
And if you’re a midwife, doula, doctor, dentist, orthodontist, pediatrician, birthkeeper, traditional healer, herbalist, massage therapist, physical therapist, naturopathic doctor, speech language pathologist, occupational therapist, or literally ANYONE who works with mothers and babies, PLEASE go educate yourself about this topic so you can actually be helpful and provide biologically-appropriate education and resources. I challenge you to broaden your scope and perspective on health, and get out there to learn so you can be an even more useful human.
