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Welcome, this is Birth, Baby.

Your hosts are Ciarra Morgan and Samantha Kelly.

Ciarra is a birth doula, hypnobirthing educator, and pediatric sleep consultant.

Samantha is a birth doula, childbirth educator, and lactation counselor.

Join us as we guide you through your options for your pregnancy, birth, and postpartum journey.

All right, y'all, we're back for our final episode about, drummo, please, diastasis.

Since this is our sixth episode, you're probably like, how many are gonna be in this?

My goodness.

So today, we are going to talk with Dr.

Melo about diastasis in infants and children.

I'm pumped, but also I'm confused.

Why are we talking about diastasis in kids?

Yeah, I am actually super excited about this episode.

I feel like this is one of the episodes that is just like, why?

Why would you add this on a whole series on diastasis in postpartum women?

And you're gonna find out through this episode why it's so important, but diastasis, actually most babies are born with it.

So going back to talk about postpartum women and diastasis, imagine if you were born with diastasis, if it doesn't heal, and then as an adult, you get pregnant and we're dealing with diastasis later on down the road as well.

So that's kind of my thinking, if you think backwards on that, about why it's so important to talk about diastasis in children, because the impact of that not healing in an adult is crazy, especially when we're talking about postpartum and healing.

So something like 80 to 90% of babies, don't quote me on that number, but it is a really high number of babies are born with abdominal separation.

And if you can picture a baby, imagine your little tiny baby and what their posture looks like.

I want you to think about their belly and what their belly looks like.

So babies have very large, distended bellies and they don't have a lot of movement.

When you bring your infant home, they just kind of lay there with their belly sticking out.

And most full body movements start with core contraction.

So core stabilization is kind of the foundation and the root of every single movement that we have.

So a baby has no core stabilization at all.

So they also have no movement at all.

And the really cool thing is that infants are pre-programmed to be able to heal their core and develop movement.

It's not something that they think about consciously.

They don't think, oh, today, I'm gonna do a bird dog and heal my core.

They just naturally learn how to change their breathing patterns and then add movement into their breathing patterns so that their core can heal.

Does that all make sense to you guys?

Yeah.

I'm so curious what the physiological reasons behind a baby having a diastasis would be, I guess, maybe just for movement through the pelvis and through the birth canal during their deliveries.

But do you know anything about that?

That's not on our list, so I'm just throwing it at you.

Yeah, I don't have a really good answer to why in utero we're developed in that way.

But it's interesting because as mammals, we're one of the only mammals that are born and we're not able to walk immediately.

I was thinking the same thing.

It has to be something about, we're all underdeveloped when we're born, extremely far apart from any other mammal.

And I know that part of that has to do with our pelvic outlet and not being able to give birth to something much bigger.

But it does, it has to be something like that.

If that many of us are born that way.

I had another thing come up.

When you were thinking about that, Samantha, my thought was, is this why, here we go, just shooting questions that aren't on the list.

Is this part of why a lot of babies have mild hernias and then they repair?

It is exactly why babies have hernias.

Just women postpartum often have hernias, especially around the belly button.

A lot of babies are born with hernias and most of those resolve on their own by about a year, sometimes earlier than that.

That's why a lot of doctors will tell moms to just wait and see, keep an eye on it.

Typically, they don't send your baby right in for diastasis surgery at month one or two.

It's just to sit and wait.

And as their diastasis comes together, that hole or that gap where the intestines are poking through, that's not there anymore.

So there's no real place for the herni to go, except back in.

Yeah, I had that with my second pregnancy.

Toward the end of my pregnancy, I could feel like, I had like, I called it squishy bellybutton, so gross.

I talked to my daughter about it the other day and she was like, oh my God, stop, I can't with bellybuttons.

I was like, I didn't know you had that.

Just wait till you're pregnant, friend.

But I literally used to tape, the doctor told me to tape my quarter onto it.

So it wouldn't be bothered by pants, but also I would just leave it alone.

And then when my diastasis started to naturally repair after pregnancy, it went away, but they told me like, yeah, you've gotta watch it.

And then I've had a lot of friends who have had, not only, not just clients, but a lot of friends that have had babies that are born with the squishy belly button.

And then I've only had one person that I've ever known in all of those years have their baby have to have a surgery for.

So that's really interesting that it's affecting moms and babies.

Yeah, it is.

So what things might interrupt the development cycle so that their diastasis wouldn't heal on their own?

Yeah, this is a really great question.

So let's just talk first about what natural development looks like, and then we'll talk about why it might not happen that way.

And going back to the hernias, the quicker that heals up, the quicker the hernia goes away.

So this is why we see fluctuations on some babies that healed up pretty quickly and some it takes a little bit longer.

And interruptions in motor development and core development would cause that to take longer to heal up, which means that your baby's hernia might be there for a little bit longer.

But for normal, going back to normal development, the very first motor development thing that changes in a baby is actually their breathing patterns.

And we think a lot of movement as starting with neck, we talk a lot about tummy time, which is very important and neck strength is very important, but actually breathing is foundational for picking the neck up and then later on for movement in general.

So one of the very first things that you will learn if you are postpartum and healing your diastasis is probably going to be diaphragm breathing.

And diaphragm breathing teaches you how to pressurize your core, which causes your abdominals, especially your stabilizer abdominals to build tone inward and your pelvic floor to also build tone upward.

It also helps those things learn to regulate.

So your core and your pelvic floor should not be contracted all the time.

It should also be relaxed sometimes.

So there's a dynamic movement between core and pelvic floor and breath where you inhale in and you create pressure and tension against the muscles and then you exhale and those relax.

So as baby hits around three months, you really start to see them start to diaphragm breathe and breathe out into their belly and expand their belly outward and they start to build tone in their core at this point.

So around three months old is really when we start to see diastasis start to close in a baby.

It's probably highly unlikely that's gonna be all the way close up by three months, but you'll see them start to use their core a little bit more.

And what you'll also see is their posture is gonna change.

So if we think of a baby that's laying face down, typically a newborn is gonna be nice and curled up and their back is gonna be very arched.

As they build core strength, their pelvis and their ribs are gonna come into a neutral.

So they look flatter and then they also can extend their arms and their legs out.

So they go from kind of bowl shaped arms and legs in to big breasts that will help them build some core tone.

It brings their pelvis and their ribs in neutral and then they're able to reach out with their legs and their arms at that point with a little bit more stability.

So one of the things that I tell parents to look for is between three and four months, if you're not seeing their pelvis come into a neutral position, it's really helpful as a parent to guide their pelvis in a neutral position so that they can then learn how to breathe appropriately if they're not breathing that way already.

And these are kind of automatic patterns that should happen, but they can get interrupted.

And that was kind of the question that you asked me, Samantha, was like, how would we know if these natural patterns are being interrupted?

And I would say, one, as a parent, it can be really hard to catch small things that might happen that are interrupting movement patterns.

That's why I always recommend make sure that you have a team of professionals that can keep eyes on your baby that aren't just you, like your pediatrician or pediatric chiro or pediatric PT, even just wellness checks.

You can have professional eyes on your baby to catch something that you might not catch until they're walking or standing.

But if your baby is going through any sort of trauma or sickness early on in life, those are big signs that their motor patterns are gonna be delayed or interrupted.

So if your birth was highly traumatic to baby, it can be any sort of trauma, either the pushing was really intense, heart rate was dropping, there was any sort of straining of the neck muscle, mom was under a lot of stress, baby's always near mom's stress system.

So if you are highly stressed out or we call that in a sympathetic state where your stress nervous system is kicked on, baby might also be very stressed out.

And it's very hard for baby's body to focus on development if they're just trying to focus on not being stressed out.

If you think of as an adult, when you're under immense amounts of stress, it makes it harder to function.

It's harder to think straight.

It's harder to make sure your basic needs are being met.

You're probably not as hungry.

You're just in this mode of fight or flight or protection.

You're not thinking about how can I make sure that I feel good today and I'm reaching all my needs or meeting all my needs.

The same thing goes for baby.

If they're very, very stressed out, it's gonna be really hard for them to, their brain to develop in these natural motor patterns.

Being sick a lot early on or being in the NICU, those are also strong indicators that they might be a little more delayed in their motor pattern development in general.

So once your baby turns three months, they're breathing more correctly.

So then we see babies start to roll.

They're gonna come into sitting, they're gonna then crawl and come into standing.

So kind of every month to two months, they're moving through a different pattern and each one of those patterns helps to build more core strength.

So rolling really helps to build your transverse and your oblique core, that motion.

Same thing with sitting up, you're having to use your stabilizer core to push up into a seated position.

Crawling is a really important position.

We mimic a lot of adult exercises off of crawling.

That bird dog that we talk about a lot in core healing, where you're using the opposite arm and leg, that's really important for pediatric core healing.

Dead bug is another one we do as adults that's based off of pediatric movements, that kind of cross crawl movement.

So generally anything that the baby-

So we're really just getting back to being like a baby after postpartum when we're trying to fix it.

We just got to go back to the baby stuff.

Exactly.

And we in our clinic's BirthCo, we use an approach called DNS, which is dynamic neuromuscular stabilization is all that means.

And it is actually a form of physical therapy that is based out of the Czech Republic.

And so if you go to a DNS seminar, one of the things that they really harp on is that in the US we are really, really intent on large motor milestones and hitting them as early as possible.

So if your baby is one year old, what is one of the number one questions you get?

Are they walking?

And if your baby is 13 months old, everyone's always asking, well, why aren't they walking?

That's just something that we are pretty intent on.

We want them to walk as early as possible.

Well, in DNS, instead of focusing on, oh, we want them to walk by year one, or we want them to crawl by whatever month, they focus on quality of movement.

So they don't want you to walk until you're crawling properly.

So if anything is wrong with your crawl, they don't want you to start then walking because that's going to mess up all your biomechanics.

They want to take you back to crawling and they want to fix that.

Then they get you to walking.

And that same concept can be translated to adults.

So if the core is not functioning correctly, we're going to take you back to some very primitive movements like crawling, like rolling to the side and stabilizing, like breathing.

Those are all very primitive exercises that help you to build stability before you're upright and you're lifting a barbell above your head or you're doing some of these more advanced type of exercise moves.

Your body is not ready for that yet if you have core separation.

So we want to kind of take you back to the basics in order to heal.

I mean, it makes sense, right?

But it is kind of funny.

I mean, are you just saying the thing about one year old and walking?

I feel like it's only for first kids.

The second kid, the parents always like push it.

Tell a quick story.

Don't let them walk.

I have to tell this quick story.

So I knew a woman when I had my daughter was like maybe one.

She had a little boy on the same street, that was two.

And her sister had just had a baby.

And well, not just had a baby.

It was like nine months old.

I think it was like eight or nine months old, starting to take steps.

And my friend goes, push her down.

She goes, don't do it.

Don't let her walk.

It's all over from here.

So I feel like that's a first time parent thing where they're really competitive about how early their kid walked.

And my first one did walk at nine months.

And y'all, it's a little creepy when they walk that little because they're like tiny little things walking around like a baby doll.

But it makes sense that if they didn't have as long to perfect the other things as they're growing, then they might not be as coordinated in the next thing.

They're kind of rushing through those.

And but I never would have thought that it could cause a long term issue.

And DNF says that 50% of babies should be walking by 15 months.

50% is all we're looking for.

And that 15 months.

Yeah, 15 months.

And then 100% should be walking by 18 months.

So this gives a lot of time between a year and 18 months that your kid might be perfecting crawling or might be perfecting kind of pulling up.

But I think the rush to like need to get baby to walk so early can cause all sorts of issues.

Because like you said, they're not ready.

Their bones are so soft.

So if they're walking at eight months, then you're at risk to develop bow legs or, you know, other types of issues.

So is it that we are doing now?

I really want to see statistics between the United States versus other places and things like that, because I'm curious, is there something that we're doing in the American culture that is, are we literally trying to teach our kids to walk early or are kids walking earlier?

Because I don't know anybody whose kids aren't walking by 15 months.

Yeah, I see a lot of pediatric patients and I don't know that 50-50 is accurate in my practice, but I would say 40-60 is pretty accurate.

60 walking, 40 still crawling by 15 months.

I do know that we in the US are heavily depend on toys, especially things like walkers.

We're putting our babies on those really early.

We also tend to put our babies in jumpers.

We put them in upright toys that make them stand up.

So we're already kind of teaching their brain to be upright before they're naturally doing it, and that could in some ways encourage baby to be upright more.

But we're like accidentally by using our props, we're maybe not intentionally teaching them early.

We're not knowing that's what we're doing, but we're kind of grooming them to do it.

Yeah, I think also we've kind of gone away from encouraging things like crawling.

Even our big pediatric associations in the US don't deem crawling an important step.

And so a lot of babies who struggle with this kind of cross-crawl motion, which this is a longer conversation, but that often lends itself to sensory issues and spectrum issues and motor development issues.

Like a lot of issues that you see later on happen from the brain not connecting together, which is this crawling motion.

And pediatricians are saying it's fine.

They can go right to walking.

And so it's not necessarily being addressed early on.

My brain is firing.

It makes so much sense, though, because it's that right left brain development and connections and all of these different things.

I can totally see that.

It's going to be fascinating to see what our kids are told about raising their kids someday, because you know it's going to be totally different.

They're going to be like, well, obviously babies have to crawl.

What if they only crawl for a short period of time?

They do crawl, but not for as long.

I'm assuming the longer they crawl, the more those connections are made.

Because I think I walked at nine months also, and I absolutely have sensory issues with certain things.

My daughter walked at nine months.

She has major sensory issues with things.

And my son walked later and doesn't.

So that's, I mean, of course, that's anecdotal.

That's just our family.

But it matches, like what you're saying tracks for us.

Yeah, so there's something called motor input that causes our body to, I'm sorry, there's something called sensory input that causes motor output.

And that simply means whatever sensory your brain is getting, it's going to react by sending a motor out to your body.

So the sensory system and the motor system are really interconnected.

Typically, one, if one has an issue, the other also has an issue.

So for instance, if you have sensory issues, if you're sensitive to certain types of stimulus, like sound or loud sounds or certain touches or certain textures, there's probably going to be some sort of motor output.

Like maybe you didn't crawl as long or maybe you didn't, you don't hold your pelvis in a good position.

Or maybe you have diastasis because your body doesn't know where it's at in space.

It doesn't have appropriate motor.

And it can be, it can go in that direction.

It can also be you didn't give it proper motor, and so you didn't crawl for as long.

And so then you don't develop the right sensory either.

The systems are connected.

I see a ton of kids that are younger that have either motor or sensory issues.

And I almost always find they have something on the other side as well.

Like if a patient brings up and they struggle with balance at gymnastics, they also almost always have some sensory issues that maybe the parent didn't know of.

Or they bring their kid in because their kid doesn't like textures or certain clothing.

And I put them through two tests and they can't balance on one leg.

They close their eyes, they have no idea where their body is in space.

They look like they're about to fall over.

So all of this happens in the brain, this integration, and we build those connections and those patterns very early.

And if they're not built appropriately, we may be able to adapt and be able to live our lives.

Ciarra, you live your life day to day.

You're an amazing mother.

You own a business.

You work out at HotWorks, but it doesn't mean that your brain has fully integrated.

And so something-

I stumble up the stairs.

I mean, our joke is how clumsy I am.

My daughter and I are so clumsy.

And I'm sure that it is all interconnected.

Yeah, it is for sure.

And another thing that I want to touch on, because it's not touched on very often in the world of like, if your child is healthy, you may never hear about these, but there's something called primitive reflexes.

And these reflexes are things that babies are born with that helps them navigate life.

They're pre-programmed reflexes, just like the movement patterns that help babies heal diastasis are pre-programmed.

These are pre-programmed reflexes that help you get through the first year of life.

And then at that point, they integrate and they become postural or motor things later on.

So for example, there's a reflex called Galan.

When you stroke the side of the back, your back turns to the side.

And this helps a baby to navigate the birth canal.

So as they're getting stimulus on their back, they're wiggling back and forth.

So it helps them get out of the birth canal.

But around three, four months, we want that to go away because we want them to then be able to move on to other motor and posture.

They don't need to go through the birth canal again later on in life.

And so I find a lot of times that kiddos who, and adults who have some sensory issues or motor issues, a lot of the kids that I find that have diastasis, they also still have some of these primitive reflexes intact.

They've never fully developed.

So they've never been stimulated enough times that they turn into a higher level of function.

And going back to things that delay proper motor development, again, being sick, taking medications first year of life, traumatic birth, anything that's like an insult on a kid's body can cause their body not to develop the way that we want them to.

And our bodies are amazing and they can adapt and we can get through life, but it's just harder.

So if we can catch some of these things early on, we can really set them up for success later on in life.

So at what point would someone, I guess at what point should someone be concerned that maybe their baby's diastasis is not closing up?

Yeah, I say at about a year, once they're coming up right, it should be fully closed.

And the reason for this is because the pelvis tilts forward if there is a lack of core strength or there's a lack of, or if there's a separation there.

If they're standing up and there's still separation, their posture is gonna develop incorrectly.

And if you think about a pregnant woman, when they have separation, their hips tilt forward, their belly sticks out because they have a baby and their ribs flare.

It's the most common pregnancy posture.

You'll find that kids, when they're upright, if they still have diastasis, they will mimic that posture.

And then as their bones really become bones and as their muscles develop, they almost always develop into a more, I would say somewhat permanent posture.

And it's not biomechanically stable.

So if you take a one-year-old that has diastasis that develops this posture, that then five-year-old wants to go do gymnastics, they're gonna struggle at gymnastics because they don't have proper positioning and now they're doing a high-impact sport, which could cause their diastasis to get worse or it could just cause them to be at a higher risk to get hurt because they don't have the same balance system that a kid who has proper posture has.

Their balance is gonna be off, their awareness and space is going to be off.

So they might struggle in sports or they might choose things that are less high-impact because they're not very good at body awareness.

They might be the kid who likes to play piano or who likes a sport that's maybe less intense.

Because again, they're not gonna be very good at sports that are highly balance demanding or that require you to be able to know where you are in space.

Okay, so two follow-up questions.

One is, is this like, sorry about your luck, you're 15 and that's how it's been and like there's not really any undoing this because those pathways weren't set earlier.

And second, what would you look for in an older kid that might signify that they do still have an underdeveloped core, hashtag asking for a friend?

Yeah, I'm gonna address your second question first because it kind of ties into what I was just talking about.

The easiest thing you can look for in an older kid is posturing.

If you feel like they kind of have a distended belly or they stick their bum out or they have their ribs stick out, they have a very, very curved low back compared to their peers, that's a good sign.

I've actually had several patients bring their kids in recently because they said their kid is self-conscious because they look a little bit chubbier around the belly.

And it was all posture, it wasn't extra tissue in that area, but it was because they stick their bellies way forward because they had no core strength.

And it was looking like a little kid with a little bit of a pot belly.

And it was just posturing in general.

So same thing in older kids.

The other thing you can do is just a self-check, just like you would check as an adult, take two fingers, have your child do a little bit of a crunch and just feel that area.

I check all of my kiddos, if I see their pelvis tilting forward, I always check for separation.

It is more common than you think it would be.

And I'm finding it becoming more and more common, especially as we're putting kids in seated positions for longer, that they're not getting as much activity as they did before.

And babies are in containers more.

So again, they're not going through movement as much.

So we're seeing more and more core issues earlier in life.

And your second question, can you heal it older?

Yes, absolutely you can.

It is more difficult just because you've got some established patterns already, whether that be we're looking at healing sensory issues specifically, or we're looking at healing diastasis.

But the longer you have something, the more your body has adapted around this thing.

And so in an older person like Ciarra, if you were to come in and we were to work on your sensory issues, there's a lot of layers we have to peel back as far as you've already adapted to certain motor patterns.

You've also adapted certain sensory patterns.

And so we might have to take kind of a multi-prong approach.

But I highly recommend if you have daughters, especially teenage daughters, check it, self-check it and see if they have diastasis.

Because if they've had diastasis their whole life and then they want to get pregnant, they're really gonna struggle in that first pregnancy because their body has never correctly adapted in the first place.

So their pelvis has probably never come into a neutral position.

Their ribs have never come into a neutral position.

So as soon as you weight their system and they start to grow a baby on top of having relaxin, that separation just significantly, typically will separate out more.

And they'll end up with harder pregnancies, more back pain, more AB issues, more pelvic floor issues, struggle with optimal baby positioning.

There are just so many things that if you go into a pregnancy with diastasis, you'll have, whereas if you can heal it beforehand, it'll make the pregnancy so, so much better for both you and for the baby.

Gosh, this is all so interesting.

And it kind of goes back to when you said the whole thing about our kids being in containers more.

This is not mom shaming.

This is just a cultural thing we're doing.

And the more products we have out, the more products people are gonna use.

But we just recorded not too long ago with Dr.

Michelle, and she was talking about birth control and how it fixes one problem, and then it has other problems.

Well, these containers fix one problem.

We have very busy lives.

We have babies that we're being told we need to have all of the stimulation for all of the time, and we're trying to do our best.

And then inadvertently, we are maybe adding some other problems.

And we also talked with Year One Wellness, you know?

And we were talking with her, Dr.

Christie, about this container syndrome kind of deal too.

And gosh, you know, Samantha and I have older kids.

I mean, not old, but older.

I think hers are four and six now, and mine are six and 13.

And gosh, if we had known, you know?

So that's our hope in doing these podcasts is that if people can hear it now while they're pregnant and or while they're just newly postpartum and they can put some of these things into motion, one last question would be, you know, somebody listening to this going, yeah, you know, my kid does have all of these things that you're saying.

Where do they go from there?

Because you're a chiropractor.

Do they go to a chiropractor?

Do most deal with this?

I know there's occupational therapists, there's physical therapy.

Like, where would be a good starting place for a professional to help?

Yeah, that is a great question.

And in the world that we live in, it's sad because sometimes parents really have to advocate for their child because it's not always, unless it's a major, major, major red flag, it's not always considered an issue, especially in the beginning.

And there's not a lot of preventative screening in the world that we live in.

You go to your pediatrician for a well check and they're like, okay, they hit one major milestone, they're gaining weight, you know.

So they're not really looking at little intricacies as far as movement and sensory and posture and those things go.

So there are a couple of different options as far as providers that you can see.

Pediatric chiros are really great at looking at posture and motion, looking at spinal movement, looking at neurology to see if their neurology has wound up or not.

And there's quite a few specialized pediatric chiropractors that will also test primitive reflexes now.

Pediatric chiropractic is really an emerging field.

Chiropractic itself has only been around about 120 years.

So the pediatric aspect of that, especially very specialized providers is fairly new.

So it can be harder to find one that specializes specifically in these developmental things, but it is becoming more and more common.

And you can call your local pediatric chiropractor up and just ask them questions about what they would check at that first appointment.

Are they just looking at spinal health?

Are they integrating posture and primitive reflexes and motor movements and things like that?

An OT is also a great option, especially if you suspect something with the sensory system.

A lot of OTs will check for primitive reflexes and they can be a great resources.

And it's totally okay to take your kid in for a screening.

If you don't know if they need an OT or not, you can still go get an assessment and have them tell you, nope, your kid looks good.

They don't need to be an OT or yes, this is a case for OT or there's an issue.

It's not an OT issue.

Let me send you somewhere else.

That's totally okay.

A pediatric physical therapy is also someone that you might just go get a screening from a preventative screening to make sure that your kid is moving correctly.

Or if you suspect like, hey, this looks off, your mama tuition is always right.

If something is a little bit off, just find a pediatric provider that you can start with, get an assessment there and then leverage them as a resource to be able to navigate this kind of preventative wellness, health care situation that we're in.

Because they'll have resources for you and they'll have professional input into whether or not there is actually an issue and whether or not they can treat that issue or it needs to go somewhere else.

Definitely.

Yeah, I mean, I think we're like, I mean, you were saying about chiropractic care and pediatric chiropractic care being so new.

I almost feel like a lot having to do with pediatrics is so new because we were just so used to like, well, you know, kids will be kids.

Kids will, you know, they're tough, they'll grow.

They'll figure it out.

You know, just rub some dirt on it sort of a thing.

And we're, I feel like we're really just starting to kind of crack the ice on that and figure out like, no, there's things that are going to affect us as adults that start in childhood.

And if we take care of that in childhood, then that can really help us as adults.

And so I think this is such an important conversation.

And as parents, you know, like you said, learning to advocate for your child, learning to trust your intuition on all of these things is going to be so important for their development and their health moving forward.

So this is so important.

I'm so glad we're talking about this.

Yeah, if you think about how many adults have chronic issues like neck pain, back pain, sicknesses, I mean, it is, the stats are growing.

We're very sick as adults and a lot, a lot of those things can be fixed if you build a foundation as a child.

I mean, I think all the time, what if my parents had taken me to the chiropractor as a kid or taken me to all these holistic providers as a kid?

I feel like I would be so much healthier and now as an adult, I'm kind of exploring like, oh, well, this is an issue and this is an issue and now I need to fix this.

But our brains are extremely moldable when we're, and so a little bit of care goes a long ways between the ages one and zero and two.

Our brains are very what we call plastic.

We can change them and mold them and kind of manipulate our health and our bodies so much more at that age than we can even.

Absolutely.

Yeah, that's huge.

Thank you so much for talking about all of this and really just teaching us all about diastasis and how we can address it and how it affects our life over these past six episodes.

I think this has been just an insanely valuable conversation that we've had and I'm so glad that we are gonna have this as a resource moving forward.

And I hope that everyone who's listening feels confident in their ability to figure out if you have a diastasis and what to do moving forward with that.

And even as we're talking about today, seeing if your kids have one and how we can help them with their health journeys moving forward.

So thank you so much.

And now maybe diastasis won't just be a buzzword for people.

I feel like that's what it's been, is kind of this buzzword that people talk about, but nobody really knows what it is.

And I'm hoping that these episodes can really help with just exactly what you're saying, Samantha, just bringing awareness and making us feel a little bit less crazy with all of the things going on with our female bodies.

Not that men can't have it too, but yeah, thank you so much.

And I'm sure we'll have you back on another time about something else.

Can you tell us where people can find you and how they can connect?

Yeah, thank you so much.

I have thoroughly enjoyed chatting with you guys.

And I also hope that whoever's listening can just take one or two gems away from this.

If we can get this information out there, it can really be life-changing for mamas and for families ultimately.

And if you do have questions, really anything at all, please reach out to me.

I am happy to answer those.

My email is drkatherindrkaterine at birthco.com.

And my clinics are in Austin, Texas.

They're called BirthCo.

And I'm always here to support mamas and to support families.

Beautiful.

And we'll have all of that linked, of course, in the show notes, as well as their socials and all of that.

So you can get in touch with them and follow along with the journey.

And if you think you have diastasis, don't forget to check out their Defeat Diastasis program, which is just a wildly valuable resource to people out there.

So thanks again for joining us and I'm sure we'll have you back soon.

Thank you for joining us on Birth, Baby!

Thanks again to Longing for Orpheus for our music.

You can look him up on Spotify.

Remember to leave a review, share and follow wherever you get your podcasts.

See you next week.