DAY 94 - Sleeping Like a Baby is Not Always Great

photo courtesy of xlibber at Flickr Commons

While it is generally true that infants sleep more soundly and peacefully than adults, and while it is also true that there are few sights more calming and beautiful than that of a little one at rest, not all babies sleep like a baby.

If you doubt me, ask an exhausted new mother, or the weary parents of a 2 year-old who still doesn’t sleep through the night.

It is common for newborns to wake frequently, being fussy, and appearing hungry. The usual assumption is that the infant is not getting enough nourishment. In many cases, the waking and fussiness are not from insufficient food, but rather from food that does not agree with the child’s digestive and immune systems.

Given that most of us would think that breast milk would be the perfect food, and some would think that a medically approved formula must surely be good for the child, few of us realize that each may cause distress, pain and aberrant sleep in a newborn or infant. Clearly, breast milk is the finest food for a newborn; but the content of breast milk is altered by the foods that the mother consumes, and can have disastrous effects on the comfort and health of the nursing infant. Formulas, even medically approved, commonly cause gastric and other distress in infants.

When foods have not been considered, nor ruled out as causes of disturbed sleep, a family often simply accommodates to the dysfunction and the harmful effect on the household, and lives with the idea that this is just a quirk of this child. As months and years roll by, the problems which often expand beyond the initial sleep disturbance, are explained by – “he has always been this way...”

Good sleep is not a luxury, it is a necessity.

If your baby is not sleeping like a baby; find out why not, and think foods.

DAY 72 - Warning: Your Insides Are Connected to Your Outsides

What I am about to tell you is one of the most important things I have ever learned about health and the human body.

Nerves interconnect our internal organs, also called viscera, and our musculoskeletal parts, or soma. Trauma, inflammation, or infection in the viscera or soma, can cause symptoms or functional changes in the other. These 2-way influences are called viscerosomatic and somatovisceral reflexes, depending on the direction of the signals.

Though not usually understood as such, one of the most common examples of a viscerosomatic reflex is the low back pain that very often accompanies a woman’s menstrual period. What is virtually unknown to most American women, and apparently most doctors, is that low back pain, or low back dysfunction without pain, can initiate the somatovisceral side of the cycle, often resulting in the causation or worsening of pelvic menstrual symptoms. (The most common types of dysfunction in the back and neck are tight muscles and stiff joints.)

To emphasize the critical importance and breadth of effect, here is a brief list of other viscerosomatic and somatovisceral reflexes:

Most Americans know that kidney infections can cause back pain. Most Americans don’t know that back dysfunction can affect kidney function.

An impending or acute heart attack can cause chest pain, upper back pain, left arm pain, and/or pain on the left side of the neck, jaw or head. Dysfunction in the neck or upper back can influence heart function.

Digestive problems in the esophagus, stomach, small intestine, and colon can cause back pain. Spinal dysfunction in the neck, upper back or lower back can have negative impacts such as constipation, diarrhea, intestinal gas, nausea, or digestive pain.

Inflammation or disease in the liver and gall bladder can cause back pain.

Respiratory problems such as asthma can cause back pain, while back problems can cause respiratory symptoms.

Pancreatitis can cause back pain.

Moral: When you have back pain, or a problem with an internal organ, remember that your insides are connected to your outsides. When you didn’t injure your back, but it hurts, think of your insides.

(Note: Autonomic Nervous System Chart, above, available at DCFirst.com)